The Open Door
by Tigrin
Summary: Once you enter Silent Hill, there's no turning back. SPOILERS: KH2 and 358/2 Days
1. Welcome to Silent Hill

Author: K. Haggerty / Tigrin  
Title: The Open Door (working title)  
Game: Kingdom Hearts II  
Date Started: 6/6/07  
Rated: PG-13 (For violence and horror)  
Genre: Horror/Drama  
Summary: On the edges of light and dark, Sora and company crash-land on a bizarre new world. Sora catches a glimpse of a figure, and the search for Riku begins in the nightmare realm of Silent Hill. Guided by a mysterious dark figure speaking in riddles, Sora, Donald, and Goofy must battle their way through a horde of horrific creatures. The farther they move through Silent Hill, the further they move from reality. Will they find Riku? Or will the madness of Silent Hill overpower them all?  
Disclaimer: All material based off of properties owned by Disney, Square Enix, and Konami. I'm making no profit off this and intend this work only as a tribute to the original works.

* * *

Darkness billowed outside the colorful interior of the Gummi ship _Highwind_. It towered beside the ship like a frozen wave, undulating with deep purples and greens – a massive bruise on the surface of space. Bits of stardust sparkled off the port wing, while black shards smoked along the starboard.

From the captain's seat, Sora gazed out the window, oblivious to the random whirs and beeps of the control panel. Staring into the wall of darkness brought back memories of recent events. He saw an army of Heartless surrounding him… a figure in a black cloak kneeling, dark mist engulfing his dying form… a photograph of a strange boy and three friends. He saw himself cornered by Heartless as a man with an X-shaped scar encouraged him to keep using the Keyblade, keep releasing hearts.

_What am I supposed to do?_ He brooded. _How can I keep using the Keyblade if it helps the Organization? All those Heartless… was it for nothing?_

A chipmunk with a round, red nose hauled itself up onto the control panel, clumsily dodging the assortment of buttons and knobs and levers. He stood and stared at Sora's far-away expression. "Uh, Sora? Sora? Yoo-hoo!"

Sora blinked and looked down at the small animal. "Oh, hey Dale. What's up?"

A second chipmunk, Chip, scampered over by Sora's feet. "We're getting some weird readings in the navigational system!" he exclaimed, pointing back towards a large monitor.

_We have a navigational system?_ Sora thought idly. "What is it?"

"I dunno! We're wonderin' if you could see it out the winda'!" Dale replied, gesturing.

Sora peered out the window. Nothing looked different. Except… he squinted and leaned forward.

In the distance he could see something gray floating out of the darkness. "Yeah, I see something… do you think it's Heartless?"

Meanwhile, Chip had joined Dale, pressing buttons and pushing levers with his small hands. "No, bigger than that!"

Sora wrinkled his nose. "The Organization?" He reached for the controls but the chipmunk slapped his fingers away.

The gray something was getting closer. It flowed and dissipated, a thick mist. Through the fog, Sora thought he could see the small, dark outlines of buildings. _Another world?_

Dale turned a knob and the cockpit was filled with the hissing roar of static. Everyone's hands flew to their ears.

"Turn it down!" Chip bellowed as loud as he could with his tiny lungs. Dale frantically pawed at the knob, reducing the sound to a more comfortable volume. He grinned sheepishly.

Goofy and Donald wandered into the cockpit, gathering around Sora. "What was that?" Donald snapped, irritated.

"I don't know… I think it's coming from that," Sora replied, pointing out the window at the mist.

Metallic clangs and scrapes were permeating the static, growing louder as they drew closer to the world. Growls and whispers were tangled up amidst the noise.

Goofy stared at the radio nervously. "Sora, I think we should –"

The control panel erupted in flashing lights and shrill beeps. An alarm roared as the cabin shook, tossing over the two chipmunks and knocking Goofy and Donald off their feet. Sora lunged for the controls but the ship was already spinning out of control. The cabin filled with the screams of its passengers as the ship plunged down through the fog. Sora clenched his eyes shut just before they hit the ground.

* * *

His eyes blinked open. An image of dark gravel faded in and out of his vision. He lifted his head, blinking, trying to adjust. That is when the pain set in. 

"Ack!" Sora hissed as a wave of pain assaulted his entire body. He pushed himself up off the ground, the rough surface biting at his fingertips. As he stumbled to his feet, he felt something drip down the side of his face. Instinctively he wiped it off. A dark red liquid was smeared across his glove. "Blood…?" he whispered in disbelief. He glanced around.

He was standing on an asphalt road. Trees surrounded the road on either side, but the fog made it difficult to see far beyond them. Behind him was the _Highwind_. The port wing had completely broken off, and the windows all smashed. Smoke billowed from the engines. His eyes strayed to Donald and Goofy, who were sitting on the road not far away, looking dazed. "Guys? Guys, are you okay?"

"I'm okay!" Donald answered, lifting himself to his feet.

"Me too!" Goofy added, following Donald. The two of them hurried over to Sora. Donald's expression of relief faded to concern when he saw Sora's face.

"Sora, you're bleeding!" Donald gasped.

"I know…" Sora brushed shards of asphalt off his cheek, flinching.

"But we aren't supposed ta… not with Yen Sid's magic…" Goofy muttered. "Can ya heal him, Donald?"

Donald looked around, patting his jacket. "_Wak! _My staff! It's gone!"

"Never mind that, guys," Sora cut in. He walked towards the wreckage of the Gummi ship. He approached the ship cautiously, peering in through the window. "Chip? Dale?"

The two chipmunks hopped up out of the cabin. "Sora! Thank goodness!" Chip exclaimed.

"Are you guys okay?" Sora asked.

"Oh, we're alright, Sora!" Dale said. Chip brushed dust off his apron.

Donald and Goofy came up beside Sora. "Do you know what happened?" Donald asked.

"I dunno! All of a sudden all the controls went all funny-like!" Dale gestured.

"We can't get any energy readings out of the power Gummis!" Chip added. "We can fix the damage, but…"

"—It's like the whole ship went capoot!" Dale interrupted.

Sora rubbed his head. "You mean, we're stuck here?" he moaned.

"Is there anything we can do?" Goofy ventured.

"See if you can find another power source!" Chip responded. "We'll stay here and see what we can do! Let us know what you find with this!" Chip and Dale ducked inside the ship. A moment later they were back, hauling a small round object. Sora reached in and took it, turning it over in his hand. Its face was covered in speaker holes, and a few buttons lined the side. "It's a radio transmitter!" Chip explained. "It's connected to the ship radio! Just turn it on and press that little round button to talk!"

Sora fumbled with the little device, pressing the buttons at random. A small light came on. Sora beamed with pride. Chip rolled his eyes.

"We're countin' on you!" Dale said.

"Leave it to us!" Donald said. He turned and gestured to Sora. "Come on, Sora, let's go!" Sora hastily clipped the radio to his belt and followed Donald and Goofy as they set off down the road.

Sora looked down at his clothes. They were torn and dirty from smoke and asphalt. He had never seen his outfit in such bad shape; usually the magic in the cloth kept it from ripping or tearing. He glanced over at Donald and Goofy. Their colors looked dull and their clothes a little dusty, but otherwise were unscathed.

Confused, he tried to take his mind off the subject. "Do you guys know where we are?"

"I'm not sure…" Donald began.

"Silent Hill."

They both stopped. Sora stared at Goofy. "What?"

"Silent Hill!" Goofy repeated. He pointed off towards the side of the road.

Sora squinted through the fog. As it thinned, he saw the decaying form of a large sign. Emblazoned on its surface were the words: "Welcome to Silent Hill". The population below it had worn off.

"Never heard of it…" Donald said, folding his arms.

"It kinda reminds me of that Port Royal place!" Goofy suggested.

"Nah, there isn't anything like this there!" Donald jumped up and down to emphasize the asphalt road.

"But it was kind of foggy there, too…"

Sora tuned out the banter between Goofy and Donald, staring out into the fog. A faint light was glowing in the distance. He squinted and could just make out a form.

"Riku!" Sora shouted, lunging forward. He started to run down the road towards the light figure.

Startled, Donald and Goofy broke off their conversation and began to run after him. As they ran, the shapes of buildings began to appear out of the fog.

Sora finally jogged to a halt, panting. Donald and Goofy stopped beside him.

"What… did you see… Sora?" Donald wheezed, leaning on his knees.

Sora breathed deeply, looking around. The street was empty, except for a thick layer of mist. The buildings to the left were decayed and falling apart, shells and fragments of what they might have been. Dead ivy clung to chipping paint on the side of a chapel. Next to it, the broken windows of a fire station gaped down at the street, the bricks of the structure crumbling and stained. Pockmarks littered the asphalt and sidewalk; signs were bent; and trash was scattered along the gutters. There was no sign of the light figure, or any life at all. "I thought… I thought I saw Riku."

"Riku? Here?" Donald peered hard into the fog.

"Gee, I don't see anybody, Sora," Goofy said, glancing around with hesitation. "Sure is spooky…"

Sora stepped forward. "He's here, he's gotta be… something about this place… I just know he's here."

Donald and Goofy exchanged glances. "Are you sure…?" Donald began. "Something about this place just doesn't feel right to me…"

Sora whirled around, glaring. "He's here! I know it! I saw him!" Sora snapped. "Don't tell me you're…"

Static suddenly filled the air, jolting Sora out of his speech. He looked down at his belt. _The radio?_

"Sora!" Goofy yelped. Sora looked up to see Goofy pointing across the street. Something was rising out of the grass in front of the church. It pushed itself out of the ground in agony; its dark skin writhed, its mouth torn open in a wide, silent scream. It crawled onto the edges of the sidewalk, long antennae separating from its head. Round red eyes glowed inside its skull. Its skin was webbed with glowing red veins, like embers in hardening lava. A dark liquid foamed and oozed from its gaping jaws. It splashed onto the ground, hissing and steaming. The creature watched them, crouching.

The three sprang into defensive poses. "W-what is that?" Goofy stuttered.

"A Heartless?" Donald suggested. "Looks like that Neo something-or-other."

"I've never seen one like that… but if it's a Heartless, it doesn't matter," Sora said. He held out his hand, attempting to summon the Keyblade. Nothing happened. Sora pulled his arm back, staring at his palm.

"What's wrong, Sora?" Goofy asked, stepping back. The creature was inching towards them, eyeing Sora hungrily.

"The Keyblade… it's gone! I can't summon it!" Sora wailed back at Goofy.

"Watch out!" Donald screamed.

In one swift movement, the creature sprang towards Sora. He turned around just as the creature spat, the dark substance landing on Sora's right arm. Sora cried out in pain, trying to wipe it off. It boiled and steamed on top of his skin.

"Come on, Sora!" Goofy yelled, and grabbed Sora's other arm. They began to run down the street. The creature's head turned slowly, and it began to follow, loping on all fours.

Sora's eyes searched wildly for a place to hide. "Guys, over here!" he cried, ducking into an alley. Squawking in surprise, Donald followed, Goofy close behind.

The alleyway was narrow and littered with debris. Pipes snaked up the brick walls, and trash overflowed out of the cans and dumpsters. The static faded to a low hum. Goofy leapt forward and grabbed the lid off one of the trashcans.

"What are you doing?" Sora called.

"Well, we gotta have somethin' to defend ourselves, don't we?" Goofy answered, clutching the lid.

Encouraged, Donald began digging through the dumpster. Sora watched in awe as he came out with a bent golf club clutched in his feathered hands.

Sora was jolted back to life by a sudden burst of static. He spun around as the creature leapt into view. It paused, sniffing at the air. The dark substance on Sora's arm flashed white-hot. Sora cried out in pain and the creature's head whipped around.

"Let me try!" Donald cried. He held the golf club in front of him. The creature wiggled its antennae, bemused. "Blizzaga!" Donald yelled, waving the golf club. Nothing happened. Donald looked from the creature to the club and back. "Blizzaga! Firaga! Thundaga! Graviga!" Donald backed up, staring down at the club in despair. "My magic isn't working!" he moaned.

Sora grimaced in pain as the creature turned towards him. Filled with horror, Sora grabbed one of the rusty pipes and began to pull. It held fast to the brick. The creature inched closer, and Sora tugged frantically at the pipe, trying to wrench it from the wall. "Come on, come on!" he hissed between clenched teeth. Whatever was on his arm was starting to spread, burning along his skin as the frustration built.

"Sora!" Goofy cried.

The creature tensed, and sprang. Seized with terror and rage, he ripped the pipe off the wall, swinging it around. It connected with the side of the creature's face, sending it flying against the opposite wall. The pipe shattered its skull, dark blood exploding against the brick and spraying on Sora's hands. He let his arms drop, the creature's body slumping against the wall. The static pulsed. Seized with one last surge of fury, Sora leapt forward and kicked the creature hard in the chest. The creature gave a shuttering heave, and laid still. The static faded.

They stood in silence, broken by Sora's heavy breathing. The fear and rage were flowing out of him, replaced with a cold shock. The black ooze on his arm burnt away. His wide, blue eyes stared at the blood seeping into the newspapers and garbage surrounding the corpse, lapping at his feet. The pipe was still clutched in his left hand, shaking.

Donald looked from the body to Sora's trembling back. He reached forward, grazing Sora's arm. "Sora…?"

Startled, he spun around, swinging the pipe. Donald hit the ground, the pipe whooshing above his head. Donald and Goofy stared at Sora. He gazed down at Donald, horrified. "Donald… Donald, I'm so sorry…" The pipe slipped from his hands and he sank to his knees in front of them, staring at the blood splattered on his fingertips. "It's just… it was just a Heartless… right?"

Donald and Goofy looked at one another, both at a loss for words. Goofy kneeled down next to Sora, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Of course it was, Sora! This place is just makin' you all confused! We gotta find Riku, remember?"

"Yeah, Sora!" Donald chimed in. "Let's go!"

Sora looked up at his friends, taking in their wavering smiles. He rose to his feet. "Yeah…" he whispered. He turned and stepped back towards the road, carefully avoiding the sight of the body. Donald and Goofy followed apprehensively, clutching their weapons.


	2. Alone in the Town

They emerged from the alley into a thick mass of fog. Sora could just barely make out the sign on the right corner, wrapped in withered ivy.

"Do you think Chip and Dale are alright?" Sora wondered aloud, pushing the debris from the sign to reveal "NATHAN AVE.".

Goofy was watching Donald investigate the rusty grating blocking off Silent Hill Savings and Bank. The duck seized and rattled the gate with a cacophony of sharp, metallic clangs before letting go, defeated. Goofy blinked back towards Sora, taking in his question. "Why don't you try that radio thingy?" Goofy suggested, while Donald cursed and swore in the background, swinging his arms at the gate.

"Oh yeah!" Sora grabbed the radio from his belt. With a sickening jolt, he wiped flecks of blood and dirt from its face. Not entirely sure what to do now, he tried the largest button. "CHIP? DALE? GUYS, ARE YOU THERE?" he shouted into the radio, as if to cover the distance. His greeting was met with silence. "HELLO? ARE YOU THERE? ANSWER, GUYS!" Goofy winced and Donald covered his ears.

"Gimme that!" Donald squawked, snatching the transmitter from Sora's hands. He frowned at the device, fiddling with some of the dials before pressing the button. He puffed out his chest and barked: "Mother Goose, this is Bravo Goose, over! Please respond, over!" Silence. Donald glared at the transmitter and shook it up and down violently. "What's wrong with this thing?"

"Gosh, you don't suppose the Heartless got 'em, do you?" Goofy gulped, nibbling at the fingers of his gloves.

"Why would the Heartless attack chipmunks?!" Donald snapped.

"Maybe he's right, Donald," Sora began. "Maybe we should check on them."

"But what about the battery? What about Riku?"

"We'll come back! Come on." Sora gestured over his shoulder and began to walk back down Nathan Avenue, Goofy and Donald at his heels. The fog was so thick here that Sora could barely see the ground. His shoes kicked small chunks of asphalt and debris. "There's gotta be some reason they're not answering," he began. "If we--" His feet came down on thin air, and he began to fall.

"Wak!" Donald cried, grabbing Sora's arm. Goofy caught Donald's flailing feet as he tumbled after Sora.

"Wooooah!" Goofy wailed, digging his large feet into the ground, the weight of both Donald and Sora pulling on his thin arms. Sora slammed against the rough and rocky side of a sheer cliff. Below his feet was nothing but swirling fog. Eyes wide, he turned and grabbed the cliff with his free arm and feet. The jagged cliff face crumbled under him as he scrambled to pull himself back up to the street. Straining, Donald and Goofy pulled Sora up over the edge. Sora sat on his back, panting and staring at the empty void in front of him.

"Are you okay, Sora?" Donald asked, leaning on his legs.

"Y-yeah... but I don't understand... what happened to the road? Didn't we just come this way?" Sora gasped, backing away from the edge. He craned his head to follow the edge where it peeked through the fog. It ran in a straight line in either direction, tearing apart buildings and road as if the land beyond had been cut away by an enormous knife.

"Something funny is going on here..." Goofy remarked, scratching at his head.

"Ah, phooey! You two are scared of nothing!" Donald scoffed, kicking a pebble over the edge. "We'll just find another way around!"

Sora pushed himself to his feet, still staring at the void that had almost swallowed him. "You're right, there's gotta be another way! Come on!" He turned and began to walk determinedly the opposite direction, Goofy following. Donald stuck his tongue out at the cliff before bobbing after them.

* * *

It was not long before the trio discovered that there was not another way. The infinite fissure cut straight down all the streets, preventing any movement eastward. Buildings were locked and boarded tight, the display windows clouded with an archaic layer of dust, the displays rotting on their stands. What buildings that were damaged enough to enter yielded nothing but broken locks, peeling paint, and creeping mold. Occasionally they would turn a corner and be greeted with a loud hiss of static, and one or two of what Sora was starting to refer to as "Nightmare Shadows". With each one they "killed" Sora found it a little easier to ignore the chill of seeing their blood seep onto the floor, and the sting on arm where the dark substance had disappeared. He tried to ignore the dark stains that now littered his companions' clothing and splattered across their hands and cheeks.

Alleyways were blocked in a bizarre pattern of rusting chain-link fences, debris, and thick, towering walls plastered with paper and graffiti. Trying to go west meant going the long way around, through wet and dusty alleyways filled with Heartless. Sora found himself standing facing an enormous wall blocking off the south end of Munson Street. Yellowed and stained papers were littered around the ground at the foot of the wall. His head craned upwards to read a giant, blood-red scrawl: "The door that wakes in darkness, opening into nightmares."

Donald and Goofy collapsed at his sides, panting, their weapons dented and stained beyond recognition. "It's no use, Sora!" Donald wheezed. "We're just getting further away! Where are we, anyhow?"

"We're... uh..." Sora patted at his pockets and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, which might have once been a flyer in a window. On the backside was a very crude line drawing in crayon, which Sora held up proudly to a bemused Donald. "Right here!" Sora said, pointing at a wavy red line marked in a childish hand: "Munsoon Street".

"Wak!" Donald exclaimed, snatching it out of his hands.

Goofy peered over Donald's shoulder. "Did you make that, Sora?" he asked, smiling.

"Yeah, I've been marking where we've been. Pretty cool, huh?" Sora grinned, leaning back with his arms crossed behind his head.

"Why didn'tcha just ask Jiminy to make a map?" Goofy asked.

Sora's smug grin faded into sheepishness. "Oh... right." He craned his head over his shoulder to try and see his hood, where Jiminy normally stayed, writing constantly in his journal. "Hey, Jiminy! Do you think you can make a map?" Silence. "Jiminy? Hey, wake up!" He reached back into his hood but his fingers clasped on thin air. His smile faded.

"What's a matter, Sora?" Goofy asked, concerned, Donald still snickering at Sora's map.

"Jiminy Cricket! He's gone!" Sora cried, pulling the jacket off and peering into the empty hood.

"Are ya sure?"

Donald's head snapped up, glaring. "Gimme that!" He squawked, grabbing the jacket. Irritated, Sora held on, and the two had a brief tug-of-war, munny jingling out of the pockets. Sora wrenched the jacket out of Donald's feathered hands.

"What happened to him? Do you think he got lost when we crashed?" Sora thought aloud, pulling the jacket back on, victorious.

"Maybe you squished him when you crashed the ship, Sora!" Donald snapped, arms folded.

Goofy looked back and forth between the two, waving his hands. "I'm sure Jiminy is fine! Maybe he's lost, too! Why don't we look for him while we look for Riku?" he suggested.

"How are we going to find anybody if we don't know where _we_ are?" Donald grumbled, trying to shake a piece of paper off his foot.

"We're in Silent Hill, h'yuck!" Goofy replied.

"I know _where_ we are! I mean where we _are_!" Donald fumed, ripping the paper off his foot and holding it out at arm's length.

Sora leaned over Donald's shoulder and subtly filched the paper from Donald's hands.

Donald jumped up and down in frustration. "Hey, what's the big idea?!"

Sora ignored him, looking the paper over. It was actually a pamphlet, crinkled and yellowed. Big dark stains blotched out some of the text and pictures, but he could still make out what it said. He read aloud:

"Welcome to Silent Hill!

Silent Hill, a quiet little lakeside resort town. We're happy to have you. Take some time out of your busy schedules and enjoy a nice restful vacation here. Row after row of quaint old houses, a gorgeous mountain landscape, and a lake which shows different sides of its beauty with the passing of the day, from sunrise to late afternoons to sunset.

Silent Hill will move you and fill you with a feeling of deep peace. I hope your time here will be pleasant and your memories will last forever."

"'Quiet little resort town' my tail feathers…" Donald muttered.

Sora flipped the pamphlet over. On the bottom was printed an address, a small map, and above it, a name. "Silent Hill Historical Society," Sora read.

"A museum? There's probably nothing there but a bunch of old junk!"

"But Donald, I bet there's lots of information there about where we are!" Goofy contested. "Maybe where to find a battery, too!"

"Maybe Riku is there!" Sora added, brightening. "Come on, let's go! It's this way!" Sora grabbed his pipe off the ground and headed back down Munson Street, Goofy at his heels. Donald rolled his eyes and followed, muttering darkly to himself.

Sora reached for the doorknob. The door creaked open. Glancing back at his friends for support, he pushed the door open and stepped inside.

At first it was too dark to see much of anything of the small room. He could see a counter to his left, and a big doorway in the back, the doors practically destroyed. The room was filled with a musty, moldy odor, and shards of glass and bits of debris crunched beneath his shoes. Squinting, he could make out a faint light in the next room. "Hello? Is anyone here?" Sora ventured. The light shifted, footsteps echoing on the other side of the wall. Sora felt his breath catch. "Riku?"

"Anybody home?" Donald squawked.

The light suddenly swung into the doorframe. The contrast was so sharp that Sora had to shut his eyes. He heard a gasp and the sound of a gunshot rang in his ears.

Goofy cried out in pain. Sora forced his eyes open, reeling from the noise. Goofy was clutching one ear – the bullet had grazed it, but blood was still trickling into his gloved hand.

Sora heard the click of a chamber reloading. He barely had time to react before Donald flung himself forward, brandishing his the dented golf club. The light shone away as a shadow reeled back, another shot ringing out, bringing down a rain of dust from the ceiling. Donald wound up for a swing but was knocked out of the way, slamming against the counter. As it took aim at Goofy once more, Sora leapt forward. "Hey wait, stop!" he shouted, swinging at the shadow. The pipe struck something solid and a voice cried out in pain. Another gunshot rang out, missing Goofy and blowing a small hole in the wall. Sora pulled the pipe back, ready to swing again while the shadow tried to recover. Alarmed, the figure moved forward.

"No!" The shadow yelled. As he swung, Sora felt something grab the pipe, freezing him in place. Cold metal pressed against his forehead. "They'll kill us! Can't you see, they're monsters!"

"They're not monsters, they're my friends!" Sora yelled back, ripping the pipe away.

The shadow paused, the barrel leveled on Sora's temple. Sora held still, staring down the barrel, the glare of the light stinging his eyes. Slowly the pistol pulled back, and Sora was finally able to get a look at their assailant.

A man stood in front of them, clutching his arm with one hand, the gun in the other. Short, dusty brown hair swept towards deep-set eyes, framed by dark rings. In one of the pockets of his olive-green jacket was a flashlight, beaming vividly at Sora and Goofy. His rather simple clothing was tattered and smeared with dirt, blood, and substances Sora could only begin to guess. His expression was set into a rather pitiful look of confusion and alarm. "I'm sorry… I thought… who are you?" he asked.

"We could ask you the same thing!" Donald snapped, brushing himself off and standing next to Sora.

The man looked away, embarrassed. "Oh, uh… my name is James… James Sunderland."

Sora relaxed a bit, but crossed his arms. "I'm Sora. The little guy is Donald, and the tall one is Goofy."

"Sora… Donald… Goofy," James repeated rather distantly. "I'm sorry I shot at you. I thought you were…"

"Monsters?" Goofy interrupted.

James blinked at Goofy, puzzled. He nodded. "There's been so many… I just wasn't expecting…"

"To see another person? Yeah, neither were we," Sora sighed. "So, do you work here, James? We're looking for some help."

James glanced at Sora, bemused. "No… actually, I'm here looking for someone." He fumbled around his pockets with his free hand, pulling out a rather crinkled, old photograph. "Have you seen her?" he asked, holding out the photo to them.

Sora leaned closer to see the photograph. It was of a woman with short hair in a pink sweater, a lake in the background. The trio shook their heads. "Nope. Who is she?"

"She's my wife," James replied, putting away the photo disappointedly. "She _was_ my wife."

"'Was'?" Donald repeated.

"Oh. She died three years ago." Sora and Donald exchanged incredulous looks. "But I got this letter from her." He pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper. "It said she was waiting here, at our 'special place'. I think she meant the hotel, across the lake." There was silence as the trio looked at one another and James waited. He frowned. "I'm not crazy."

"We didn't think you were!" Sora smiled reassuringly. Donald moved as if to make a remark and Sora stepped on his toes. Donald was silenced with a muffled squawk.

James returned the letter to his pocket, eyeing Sora apprehensively. "What about you, are you friends with that Laura girl? Did you come to find Mary, too?"

"Uh, no… actually, we're looking for someone, too. He's a friend of mine. Riku. Have you seen him?"

James furrowed his brow, thinking. "Riku…? No, I'm sorry. Maybe…" He suddenly looked rather nervous, glancing over his shoulder.

"Huh? What is it?"

James glanced from the next room to Sora. "I want to show you something." He turned and stepped into the next room. Sora looked back to his friends, wondering if they should follow. Donald shook his head. Goofy nodded. Shrugging, Sora followed.

The next room was slightly larger, stretching out to the left. A long display case stood in the center, but the glass had been smashed to pieces, and whatever had once been in it was gone now. Paintings and photographs hung on the walls next to fading captions. In spots, the dreary, flower-printed wallpaper was slightly lighter where a picture had once hung. James was standing in front of a painting, staring. Sora, Donald, and Goofy stepped over the glass and rubble, peering around James.

The painting was of what appeared to be a man in a bloodstained apron. On his head was a massive, pyramid-shaped helmet, tinted a deep red. In his gloved right hand, he clutched a spear. Around him, corpses hung in strange cages. Sora's eyes strayed to the title. Misty Days, Remains of the Judgment. Feeling a sudden chill, he looked up at James, who was staring into the painting, blanched.

"James?" Sora said, tentatively.

James snapped out of his thoughts, looking down at Sora. "Have you seen this? This Red Pyramid thing?"

The trio shook their head. "Gosh, he sure doesn't look friendly," Goofy remarked.

"What does this have to do with Riku?" Donald asked, tapping his foot.

James glanced down at Donald, looking pensive. "I've seen him, wandering around the town, staring at me. Me and… me and my friend… we were traveling together, but we… got separated, in the hospital. The Red Pyramid took her."

"Do you think he took Riku, too?" Goofy asked.

"I don't know. Maybe." James looked to Sora, his expression melting from sorrow to seriousness. "Whatever you do… don't let him catch you. You can't fight him. Just run."

Sora looked from the painting to James. "Sure… I'll remember that. Say James, do you know how to get out of here? We tried to get back to our other friends, but all the roads are… blocked. And our radio doesn't work."

James looked puzzled. "Really? Me too. I've just been marking where I've been on these maps." He pulled a small handful of maps from his pocket, all of which were covered in small red marks.

"Hey, where did you get those?" Donald asked. He made a swipe at the maps but James quickly shoved them back in his pocket.

"I found them… but there might be another copy at the front desk." He pointed to the room they had just left.

Sora looked over his shoulder and nodded. "Oh, one more thing… do you know where we could find a battery? Like, for a gummi ship?" He held his hands out, indicating a box-like shape.

Perplexed, James shook his head.

Sora sighed, dropping his hands. "Well, thanks anyway… come on, guys, let's look for that map," Sora said, to Donald and Goofy, turning away.

"Hey, wait!" James cried, reaching for Sora. Sora stopped, glancing back at James. James' hand clutching the pistol was shaking. "Do you… do you want to come with me? Maybe we can find Mary and uh… your friend... together. There are a lot of monsters out there. You might need my help."

Sora stared at James, hesitant.

"Come on, Sora!" Goofy said. "Let's go with him! What if he's right about that Red Pyramid thing?"

"Aw, phooey! That's just a picture! It's not real!" Donald retorted.

Sora looked away. A splotchy photograph of a building hung on the wall. Sora could just make out the name in the caption. "Brookhaven Hospital". He sighed. "Sorry… but I think we have to do this by ourselves."

James looked at his feet, disappointed. "Oh. Alright, I understand. Well. I hope you find your friend."

"I'm sure you'll find your wife!" Goofy chimed.

James smiled weakly. "Thanks." He turned away, opening a door. He glanced one last time at them before disappearing, closing the door behind him, the light disappearing with him. The room was plunged into near darkness again.

Sora walked carefully back to the other room, Donald and Goofy following. "Why didn't you want to go with him, Sora?" Goofy asked. "I thought we always help!"

"Remember what you guys told me when we first met, about other worlds?"

"You mean about muddling?"

"Meddling!" Donald corrected.

"Yeah, that… I just feel like, if we helped him, it would really be meddling," Sora explained.

"Isn't it kind of late to be thinking about that?" Donald scoffed.

Sora grimaced and started searching around the front desk, layers of dust caking onto his fingers. "Well, yeah… it's just… I guess I don't see the point of looking for a dead person. I mean, his wife is dead, right? She's not coming back."

"But he got a letter from her!" Goofy pointed out.

"Maybe he made it up. I thought he was kind of screwy," Donald contested.

"Still, it's worth looking, isn't it? When you lose someone important to you, you'll do anything to get them back. Isn't that right, Sora?"

"Huh?" Sora looked up, clutching a handful of papers. For a moment he thought of his long adventures so far in search of Riku – all the worlds he had visited, all the people he had helped. Through it all, there was always a bit of disappointment every time they left a world empty-handed. It had been so long; maybe there was no chance of finding Riku. Maybe he was gone, like James' wife. Yet just thinking of Riku, he felt something tug inside his heart, pulling him forward. He had to keep looking, keep trying. "Yeah, I guess so."

"Remember when you became a Heartless? Kairi knew it was you, and brought you back!" Goofy said. "If Mary is here, then James would know!"

"Yeah, you're right, Goofy. He doesn't need us, anyway," Sora sighed. He thumbed through the papers in his hand, trying to tilt them towards the dim light of the door. He pulled out a folded piece of paper with a faded image on it. "Hey, look! A map!" Unfolding it, he held it out in front of them. Goofy and Donald leaned in, squinting.

"Here we are, right there!" Goofy pointed at a little building labeled "Silent Hill Historical Society" in the bottom left of the map, next to a big blue splotch labeled "Toluca Lake". "And that must be where we came from!" he said, pointing towards the bottom left of the map, where a road led off the map to "Pleasant River".

"But how do we get back? The roads are all blocked!" Donald wailed.

Sora set the map down on the counter and began marking off where they had been with his red crayon. "We're not going back," he said.

"Waah? Why not?"

"Because we're going here," Sora stated, pointing at a building labeled "Brookhaven Hospital" on the map, not far from the Historical Society.

"Why are we goin' there, Sora?" Goofy asked, peering at the little purple building.

"Donald's healing spells don't work, right?" Sora began. Donald muttered under his breath. "There's gotta be medical supplies at a hospital. We can fix your ear, too, Goofy."

Goofy nodded vigorously. "Good idea, Sora!"

"Wait a second, isn't that where that Red Pyramid thing is?" Donald interjected.

"I thought you said it wasn't real, Donald!" Sora taunted.

"Well, yeah! But—"

"So what are we waiting for?" Sora folded up the map and shoved it in his pocket. Donald sighed loudly as Sora strode back outside.


	3. Maternal Heart

Donald and Goofy lagged behind Sora as he strode confidently through the thick fog, their footsteps beating hollowly on the asphalt in a discordant rhythm. Goofy watched in bemused fascination while Donald made a vain attempt to straighten out the kinks and curves in his 5-iron. His cheeks puffed as his thin arms strained against the metal, muttering up a storm under his breath.

With a burst of frustration, Donald pulled together all his might and threw the club at the ground. It struck with a resounding metallic clang and bounced straight back up, striking the bottom of Donald's bill. "Ow ow ow!" he cried, clutching his chin. He gave the club a hearty kick, sending it clattering across the pavement. "Stupid thing! Why can't I use my magic?"

Goofy lumbered over and picked up the dejected golf club, tilting it his hands. "Hrm... maybe it's 'cause this world is too close to the darkness?"

Donald folded his arms, staring daggers at the club in Goofy's hands. "Maybe..."

"We'll get it back, h'yuck! It can't be gone for good, not while there's still light!" Goofy chimed, holding out the club to Donald.

Encouraged but still dubious, Donald grabbed the club out of Goofy's hands. "I just want Cure back, at least," he sighed.

"Scared of that er, Pyramid thing?"

"Of course not!" Donald huffed, pushing up his sleeve. "That James guy was funny in the head. He probably made it up just to scare Sora."

"Aw shucks, I thought he seemed alright to me."

"All-right?!" Donald squawked. "He shot you!"

Goofy pawed at his ear. "Well, we woulda done the same if we thought we saw a Heartless, wouldn't we?"

Donald's response was cut off by a distant cry. Startled, the two looked around, trying to make sense of the curtain of fog around them. "What was that?" Donald croaked, swallowing a lump in his throat.

Goofy nibbled on the fingertips of his gloves. "Hey, where's Sora? Sora! So-ra!" Goofy called out. Clutching the trash can lid out in front of him, Goofy charged into the fog, disappearing.

"Wait for me, Goofy!" Donald cried, dashing after him. Buildings crawled by -- a large, decaying sign of a bowling pin advertised Pete's Bowl-O-Rama. Dusty cars leaned on flat tires outside a gas station. Finally, a cluster of dark shapes began to emerge from the fog.

Sora was standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by a pack of hunched-over creatures. Donald's first impression was that they were Dusks, the common-place Nobodies they had run into so often during their journey. They were all bent over with their heads facing the ground. A spider-web of blue and purple veins tainted their usually silver skin, some seeming to bleed out onto the skin. The opening for the hood, with its jagged zipper, gave the appearance of a grimace; dark splotches above it looked like hollowed-out eyes. Their slender arms and sharp, fused fingers were tied back with barbed wire, forcing the creatures into a near crouch. They lumbered towards Sora on their thin legs, silent. Donald could hear the radio clipped to Sora's belt pulsating with static. The dark substance on Sora's arm was beginning to spark back to life in tiny black flames.

As Donald and Goofy watched in fascinated horror, one of the Dusks leapt at Sora. Stumbling backwards, Sora swung the pipe against the creature, sending it flying into one of its companions. Thrown off balance from the swing, Sora fell back onto one of the Dusks. They began to swarm around him.

"Donald! Goofy! Help!" Sora cried, kicking one of the Dusks off him.

"We're comin', buddy!" Goofy called, leaping into the fray, slamming the trash can lid against one of the Dusk's heads. Brandishing his club, Donald charged in as well, bringing it swinging down on one of the fallen Dusks with a crack.

Sora struggled to his feet, and the three were soon surrounded by a pile of corpses, blood seeping onto the asphalt. The static fizzled out, leaving only the sound of the three panting above the bodies. Donald shot a glance at Sora's arm, where darkness engulfed everything from Sora's fingertips to his shoulder. Still clutching the pipe, Sora strode towards one of the Dusks splayed on the ground. He stood watching it writhe for a moment, before raising his foot and stomping it down hard onto the Dusk's head. Blood exploded out from under his shoe in a thick current.

"Sora!" Donald cried out in alarm.

Sora spun to face Donald and Goofy, chest heaving from a mixture of exertion and rage. Donald was struck by an odd yellow glow in Sora's eyes as he stood snarling at them. "Where were you guys?"

"I'm sorry, Sora," Goofy began, brows wrinkled with worry. "Me and Donald were talkin' 'bout magic, and we musta gotten left behind..."

Sora smeared a splash of blood across his cheek with the back of his hand, glaring at Goofy. "Oh yeah? Well next time, don't fall behind! I coulda been--!" He shuddered and dropped to his knees, clutching his arm. Donald ran forward, leaning down in front of Sora. The darkness clinging to Sora's arm was slowly burning off between his fingertips.

Donald placed a hand on Sora's shoulder, peering down to try and get a look at Sora's face. "Sora? Are you okay?" When Sora looked up, his eyes were back to their usual shade of bright blue.

Sora looked slowly from Donald to Goofy, still clutching his arm. His face split into a weak smile. "Y-yeah, I'm fine!" he replied with mustered enthusiasm. "What about you guys? Are you all-right?"

"We're okay, but you don't look so good..." Goofy said, offering a hand to help Sora up.

Sora waved it away, pushing himself to his feet. "I'm fine, really. We should get going before any more of those things show up." His eyes strayed to the pipe lying on the ground and he scooped it up, swinging it over his shoulder. Picking his way carefully around the bodies, he began to set off down the street, Donald and Goofy alongside him.

"This place keeps getting weirder and weirder! First Heartless and now Nobodies! Do you think the Organization is here?" Donald thought aloud.

"I don't know... maybe..." Sora responded absentmindedly.

"What would the Organization want here? There don't seem to be many people around..." Goofy added.

"And why did those Nobodies look so weird?" Donald said. "They were like -- like -- Nightmare Dusks or something!"

"A Nobody is a Nobody! Who cares what it looks like! You're letting this place get to your head, Donald!" Sora scoffed, grinning.

"Hey, look! I think this is it!" Goofy cried. They all stopped and looked up at a 3-story building towering above them. A walkway and a series of steps led up to a set of double doors.

"Brookhaven Hospital..." Sora muttered. He gestured towards the door and the three walked up. Donald seized one of the doorknobs and pulled. The door swung open slowly with a loud, rusty creak, and they stepped inside.

It was nearly pitch dark inside, the door letting in a stream of pale light. The air hung thick and heavy with dust. Goofy let out a sneeze so violent it knocked him back a few steps.

"Hello? Anybody here?" Donald called out into the darkness.

Sora's ears pricked for the sound of static or movement, but there was only silence. "Let's take a look around, you guys... but first, we're gonna need a light." From what little Sora could see, he could make out a door in front of him next to a curtained counter. Sora stepped forward and tried the door handle. It opened easily, the hinges creaking. Squinting, he tried to make sense of what little he could see in the dark -- a desk, some cabinets. There was a small door on the left wall, but the lock rattled and the door didn't move. Donald and Goofy filed inside the cramped space. "Look for something we can use," Sora instructed, turning away from the small door.

"Right!" Donald replied, pulling open the doors on one of the cabinets.

Sora turned to the desk and pulled the curtains over the counter window aside, letting in dim light from the open entrance door. A public address system and an old computer sat on the desk; the rest was covered in papers. Sora decided to pass on the computer -- it looked too banged up to run, and he wasn't going to risk unleashing his technical ineptitude on another piece of unfortunate equipment. He started rustling through the papers, throwing up more dust. Goofy doubled over into another sneeze. He tried to hold the papers up to the light, but most of them looked useless: patient files for a Stanley Coleman, Leonard Wolf, Mary Sunderland -- he tossed them aside.

Goofy was rummaging through a cardboard box so worn that the label scrawled on the front now only read "Lost". He pulled out an odd contraption and held it out, squinting. "Hey, what's this thing, Sora?" he asked, holding it out.

Sora and Donald looked up at the thing dangling from Goofy's hand. It looked to them like a thick headband with small boxes attached to it. "Let me see!" Donald said, stretching his hand up towards Goofy. Goofy obligingly handed it over. Donald turned it around in confusion. "It's... uh..."

"It's a surgical headlight," Sora interrupted.

Donald and Goofy looked over at Sora, bemused. "A what?" Donald said, incredulous.

"Here, let me see it." Sora held out his hand and Donald reluctantly passed it over. Sora turned the device around and flipped a switch, and a bright light flashed out of a small disc on the bottom of the headband.

"Ow!" Donald cried, shielding his eyes. Sora squinted as he slipped the headband onto his forehead, the beam of light shining past Donald and Goofy.

Donald blinked up at Sora, eyes adjusting. "Oh, it's a flashlight!"

"How did ya know what it was?" Goofy asked, sounding impressed.

Sora bit his lip and looked back to the desk, the lighting turning with him. He started to shift through the papers. "Oh, uh... I... I knew... someone... who was a doctor..."

"Really? You've never mentioned that before!" Donald said.

"Because it doesn't matter." Sora gave them a reassuring smile and looked back to the desk. "Keep looking, guys."

Donald and Goofy exchanged a glance. Even though they had been through so much together, the two couldn't help feeling there were things about Sora they still didn't know -- things he kept secret. They had come to know Sora was the sort of person who followed his heart instead of his head, ignoring logic for passion. Most of the time, this made Sora an impulsive airhead -- too caught up in what was going on around him to bother with thinking things through. Hearing something so sophisticated come out of his mouth stunned them, to say the least -- and the way he turned away and tried to cover up his discomfort told more of a story than he let on. Donald was eager to know what Sora was hiding, and moved as if to speak again -- but was silenced by an unusually stern look from Goofy. Grumbling, Donald turned back to the cabinet.

Now that Sora had cleared away some of the papers, he noticed something sticking out of the middle of the desk. A pair of surgical scissors had been stabbed into the wooden surface, the edges rusty and crusted with a dark substance. Pinned beneath the scissors was a blank doctor's prescription. Something had been scrawled on it with a messy hand, in a liquid that had long since browned. Tearing the note away from the scissors, Sora read aloud,

"From below to above

Gather together one by one

Count the hours on the clock

Until midnight is struck"

"What's that, Sora?" Goofy asked, clutching a small stack of paper.

"I don't know, I found it under this..." Sora pointed to the scissors embedded in the desk.

"What's that even supposed to mean?" Donald snorted. He pulled the scissors out of the desk and looked them over. "Hey, look!" He pointed to just above the blade, where a number one had been carved crudely into the metal.

"I wonder who woulda done this..." Goofy thought aloud, scratching his head.

Sora stared hard at the paper, eyebrows furrowed, before handing the paper to Goofy. "I'm not very good with this poetry stuff. I slept through my literature classes," he yawned.

"Sora! You should pay more attention in school!" Donald chided.

Goofy read the poem over, and looked at the scissors. "I think it wants us to collect something like this! If it has a number, there must be more than one, right?"

"I guess that makes sense, but what for?" Donald asked, tapping his foot.

"Yeah, what if we don't?" Sora added.

A loud creaking broke into their conversation. All three turned to look out the reception window as the entrance door swung shut. Flashes of light burst along the seams. Sora burst out of the room and slammed up against the doors. They didn't budge. Stepping back, he stared in stunned bewilderment, Donald and Goofy walking up alongside him. A network of wires now criss-crossed around the double-doors, intertwined and fused with the handles. The metal around the edges of the door had been warped and welded.

"What happened?" Goofy gasped.

Donald pulled at the door handle, webbed feet slipping along the ground. There was a bright spark and Donald suddenly let go, falling backwards. "Wak!" he cried as he hit the ground. "Ow ow ow ow!"

"Looks like we're not getting back out this way..." Sora sighed, giving the door a half-hearted kick.

Goofy reached down and pulled an agitated Donald to his feet.. "That's right, Sora! There's gotta be another way out! Maybe this riddle is a clue!" Goofy said, holding out the slip of paper to Sora. Sora gave Goofy a skeptical smile, but took the slip anyway and folded it carefully into his pocket.

"Who set this up?" Donald thought aloud, looking around the floor for his 5-iron. "I'd like to give them a piece of my mind!"

"The Organization?" Goofy suggested.

Sora scoffed and turned away from the door. "Whoever it is, we'll just have to play their game for now. Come on, let's keep looking. There's got to be a map or something around here."

The three turned away to follow the beam streaming down from the headlight, illuminating the stained and splotched walls and the doorways of the narrow corridor. As the light turned with Sora around a corner, the radio fizzled to life with the low hum of static. They froze as the light settled just below a humanoid figure standing down the hall.

The figure stood with its back to them, bent over at an odd angle, limbs twisted. Its form was distinctly feminine, the stiletto heels on its feet pumping up the curves of its legs. The skirt it wore was way too short, and the outfit looked uncomfortably tight. The dim light gave the material a dull, leathery sheen.

"Hello?" Sora called out, too stunned by the sight of another human to consider the meaning of the radio static. He tilted his head so that the light drifted upwards from the floor to the figure's back.

The figure gave a shuddering twitch, and started to turn towards them. Sora was stunned not only by the way it moved in unnaturally sharp jerks, but by the figure's face -- or rather, lack there-of. Where there should have been a woman's face, a mass of twisted flesh wiped away any recognizable facial features. Sora recognized the outfit as a nurse's uniform, too bizarre, too revealing to be on any nurse he had ever seen. The alluring appeal of the outfit and the figure's proportions was tainted by the grotesque pallor of the creature's skin, pale and covered with branching dark blue veins. Light shone off the rusted metal of a scalpel dangling from the nurse's right hand.

Donald and Goofy flinched back in response to the nurse's movement towards them. "W-what is that?" Goofy stuttered.

"Is that a Heartless?" Donald cried, clutching the golf club out in front of him.

"I've n-never seen a Heartless like t-that!"

"Me neither!"

"Is it a N-nobody?"

"Sora! What should we do?"

Sora didn't respond. He watched the nurse approach slowly towards them, its feet shuffling across the dusty floor. The hum of static grew louder and louder, the sound intermittent with odd clanks and gurgled breathing, and what began to sound like a human voice. It wavered in and out of the static.

"_Sora,_" a female voice called.

He froze, a shiver running up his spine. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the twisted skin of the nurse's face, coming closer and closer to him. The static grew louder.

"_Sora. Sora, honey._" The nurse gave a violent shudder as it stopped in front of him, raising the scalpel. The voice grew louder and more desperate. "_Sora, where are you?_"

"Sora, watch out!" Donald shouted, breaking through the static.

Sora snapped back to life as the creature swung the scalpel towards his neck. He leaned back just enough for the blade swing past him. Sora leapt away and renewed his grip on the steel pipe. The nurse's blank face followed the light, quickly regaining its composure. It made to swing at Sora as he slashed the pipe to the creature's side. Sora winced as the scalpel grazed his upper arm, drawing a red line across his skin. The nurse stumbled, emitting a harsh scream from beneath its warped skin.

Donald knocked the 5-iron against the nurse's kneecaps, bringing it crashing to the ground. It writhed against the floor, arms seeking purchase. Sora raised the pipe above the creature's head, willing his arms to send the pipe swinging down, but they didn't move. The figure lay on the floor twitching and he could only stare wide-eyed.

Goofy looked hopelessly from the nurse to Sora. "What's wrong? Sora!"

"Come on, Sora!" Donald pleaded.

Sora's arms slowly sank down as he stepped back. It was starting to pick itself back up. Frustrated, Donald swung the golf club hard against the creature's back. The spine snapped and splintered ribs burst through the skin and clothing, blood spraying through the rents in the skin. The nurse collapsed to the floor with another agonized scream. Blood bubbled from the wounds as the figure shuddered and stopped, the static and the harsh sounds of breathing fading out with its movements.

They stared in silence for a moment at the corpse. Goofy shut his eyes and turned away to check Sora. He had backed away against the wall, knuckles white from clenching the pipe, his gaze still fixed on the creature's head. "Sora? Are you okay?" Goofy asked. He placed a hand on Sora's arm, and Sora shuddered, his eyes breaking contact with the sight of the corpse. He was pale and covered in a cold sweat.

"I-I'm sorry guys, I... I don't know what's wrong with me..." Sora wheezed, stepping away from the nurse's body. "I mean, it was just a Nobody, right? We've seen human-shaped Nobodies before."

"Why did you freeze up like that?" Donald huffed.

"I... did you hear that voice?"

"Voice?" Donald repeated. He and Goofy exchanged glances and shrugged.

"I didn't hear anything, Sora," Goofy replied.

Sora looked from one to the other in dazed confusion. "What? But I heard..."

"We need to get you something for that!" Goofy pointed at the cut on Sora's arm, which was oozing blood.

Sora looked down at the cut on his arm and tried to wipe the blood away, smearing it across his skin. "O-oh, yeah... I forgot..." He looked up and around, the light settling on the doors. "Well, one of these doors has got to be a pharmacy or something... there should be medical supplies..."

"Then let's look!" Goofy encouraged.

Sora nodded. He stepped away from the wall to regard the door closest to him. Faded lettering printed on the wooden surface spelled "Pharmacy". _It can't be that easy_, he thought. He grabbed the doorknob and twisted. It didn't budge. _Locked. Of course. _He glanced down at the steel pipe in his hand and tried to imagine a Keyblade there instead. It remained a rusted, blood-stained steel pipe. "There should be a key somewhere," he thought aloud.

"One of these rooms has got to be open," Donald remarked.

"Let's try them all!" Goofy exclaimed. He started to move down the hall, the sound of broken locks rattling as he moved.

"All of them?" Donald grumbled uneasily, following Goofy's enthusiastic form.

Sora's eyes wandered back down to the corpse at his feet. The scalpel clutched in the nurse's hand glinted in the light. Curiosity peaking, he pried the tool from the creature's grip and held it up. Carved into the handle was a number two. "Hey Donald, do you still have those scissors?" Sora called as he walked down the hall after his friends.

Donald patted his vest pockets, pulling out the scissors and holding them up.

Sora held up the scalpel in response. "Found another one. How many do you think there are?"

Donald shrugged, handing the scissors to Sora, who put the two items carefully into one of the pockets that hung off his pants.

Goofy was pulling at the door of a stairwell -- locked, but mercifully not broken. He tore his attention away to Sora and Donald. "The answer must be in the riddle!"

"The riddle?" Sora repeated. He pulled out the prescription note from his pocket and held it up to the light. "'Count the hours on the clock / Until midnight is struck'," he read.

"Right!" Goofy nodded, holding up a finger. "If you count the numbers on the face of a clock..." He began slowly counting on his fingers.

Donald followed along on his fingers, stopping short at the number eight confusedly.

Sora stared upwards, working through the idea slowly. "So there are... twelve?"

Goofy nodded broadly. "Yup! See, Sora, it's not so hard!"

"Easy for you to say..." Sora muttered. He wandered away and pulled at a set of double doors idly. They opened with a screech, catching Sora off-guard both with the movement and the noise. "Woah!" he exclaimed before falling through the doors. Donald and Goofy hopped around him into the corridor on the other side. "Sure guys, don't help me up or anything," he grumbled as he clambered to his feet.

Donald and Goofy had already forged ahead, pulling at more broken locks. Goofy pulled at the door of a room labeled "C2" and the radio crackled with static. A Nightmare Dusk tumbled out of the room. Startled, Goofy instinctively kicked the Nightmare Dusk away. It hit the wall with a snap, and lay still on the ground. The static died out. Goofy blinked sheepishly. "Gawrsh," he peeped.

"Way to go, Goof'," Sora whistled. Walking up to join them, he peered into the room. It was relatively empty, with the exception of some overturned bed frames, and a large light fixture that had fallen from the ceiling. Sora stepped into the room, light sparkling along the glass shards. Hidden amidst the field of glass was an empty hypodermic needle. Carefully, he picked up the needle and held it the light. A number six had been etched into the glass. Turning away from the room, he held the needle up for Donald and Goofy to see before pocketing it. "Got number six."

It didn't take long to check the other doors in the hall -- all broken shut or blocked. A set of double doors at the end of the hall was locked, as well as another small stairwell door. A small elevator at the end of the hall failed to respond when the buttons were pressed.

"What are we gonna do?" Donald sighed. "We can't go up without a key."

"Let's go back to the other hall, we didn't try all the rooms there," Sora suggested.

They filed back through the double doors. Next to another unresponsive elevator was an open door labeled "Doctor's Lounge". In wonder at finding an open door, the three poured in. The small room had a dank, musty odor, and was crowded with a large table, a small refrigerator, a sink, and some low cabinets. Inspecting the fridge, Donald pulled out a glass bottle. The contents inside were a brick red color, and flowed with a thick consistency. "'Health refreshment drink'? Like a Potion?" Donald read skeptically. He twisted the top off and sniffed, sticking his tongue out in revulsion.

Sora tried to quell his amusement at the sight of Donald sniffing the bottle. _Isn't he a duck? Where's his nose? _"Hold onto it, maybe it will come in handy."

"I'm not gonna drink _that!_" Donald protested, but pocketed it anyway.

Sora's attention wavered to a single piece of paper on the table, torn from a notebook. He held it up to the light. Part of a name had been torn off at the top, but the rest of the notes were intact. They were scrawled in a carefully controlled, looped writing, and it took Sora a moment to decipher what he was reading.

_Presenting strong autobiographical memory loss and emotional dissociation. Suspicion of split ego states. _

_Calm and behaved unless provoked. Very strong sense of justice and delusions of grandeur. Obsessions with strong ideology sometime leads to violent behavior. Exercise extreme caution. _

_Apparent distrust of adults and authority figures. Possible roots in childhood development. Investigate further._

Sora frowned. _Doctors are always looking for what isn't there. What a quack_, he thought bitterly, and tossed the note aside. On the table where the paper had been lay a silver pen, a number three engraved on the top. Picking it up, he was startled by a sudden rustle of papers in front of his face.

"Look, Sora!" Goofy's voice chimed from the other side of the paper. "A map!"

Sora's focus readjusted to take in the lines and text that jumbled together in front of his eyes, forming a map. "Great!" he replied, trying to inject the same sort of enthusiasm into his voice with marginal success. He snatched the papers dangling from Goofy's hands and spread them out on the table. Pulling the red crayon from his pocket and exchanging it for the pen, he started marking the doors they had tried so far. Goofy and Donald peered over his shoulder.

"Okay, if there is a key, it should be... somewhere around here," he drew a large circle on the right side of the first floor map with his finger.

Goofy tried to make sense of the confusion of squiggles and checks Sora had already drawn onto the map. "Why d'ya say that?"

"Because it's the only place we haven't checked!" Donald answered, unimpressed with Sora's deductive reasoning. His eyes strayed to a large room in the lower right. "A kitchen! I'm starving," he groaned. Drool began to leak from his bill as if to punctuate the grumbling sound emerging from his stomach.

Sora leaned away from the drooling duck. "I wouldn't expect anything edible here, Donald..."

"It's worth checking!" With that, Donald made a mad dash out of the room and around the corner into the dark. Sora and Goofy stared as he disappeared out of sight.

"Hey, wait up!" Sora called. Scooping up the map, Sora and Goofy stumbled back out in the hall. They caught a glimpse of tail feathers as they disappeared through a door. "Can't he think about anything else besides his stomach at a time like this?" Sora muttered, following the feathers through the doorway. His shoes struck something hard and he wind-milled his arms wildly trying to regain balance. Caught off-guard, Goofy slammed into Sora and the two went down in a mass of swinging arms. "Woah--!" Sora cried before hitting the hard tiled floor. He hissed in pain and looked up at the cause of all the trouble.

Donald was standing just inside the doorway, staring fixedly in front of him. Following his gaze, Sora craned his head upwards.

The beam from the headlight split and bounced in several directions as they caught what was hanging from the ceiling over a large kitchen island. Dozens of knives of every size turned and rattled in the breeze from the door. Interspersed amongst them were large hooks. Chunks of what Sora hoped was meat clung to the hooks, shriveled and rotting. The stench hit Sora like a punch to the stomach, and he doubled over in nausea. Goofy turned a violent shade of green.

"Urp!" Sora choked. He stumbled to his feet, swaying. Reaching for the door, he was stopped by a tug on his sleeve. Fighting the urge to run, Sora turned and looked back at Donald. He was gesturing up at the knives hanging from the ceiling. Swallowing his nausea, Sora looked back up. Hidden amidst the sea of cutlery flashed a number five. "Oh!" was all he could manage to force out -- the thought of breathing in order to speak induced more panicked flight feelings.

Sora moved shakily around the island, taking in the rest of the kitchen. Food stains littered the walls and clogged the grout in the floor. Large cooking pots cluttered the huge commercial ranges, many of which seemed to still be filled with a variety of gag-inducing stews. He looked up at the ceiling, where the numbered knife hung just out of reach. In a stroke of nausea-induced genius, he reached up at it with the steel pipe.

Goofy stood back, turning the trash can lid around in his hands. "Sora, be careful," he whimpered.

The steel pipe swayed precariously around the knives, before finally striking -- right next to the target. There was a roar of sharp clanks and clangs as the knives began to rebound against each other -- and, one by one, fall from the ceiling.

"Waaaaaah!" The three screamed and took cover as the knives began to bounce off the metal island. A paring knife ricocheted off the counter and struck the center of Goofy's trash can lid, which he clutched protectively over his head. Donald scrambled about in a dizzy panic as knives fell around him, splitting his tail feathers. Sora cowered under the enormous industrial sink he had been standing over moments before as a butcher's knife struck the tiles at his feet. The rain of cutlery trickled to a stop. The blade of the butcher's knife still rung with vibrations as Sora crawled slowly out from his hiding spot.

"You guys okay?" Sora called out.

He was answered by a blather of unintelligible obscenities from Donald.

"I'm alright!" Goofy responded shakily, peering out from under the trash can lid. The paring knife had imbedded itself in the aluminum.

Sora sighed in relief. He pawed through the mess to recover the prize. A glint in the corner of his eye lured his attention to the sink.

The enormous metal sink was stained with blood, smearing towards the drain. Sora peered through the hole to see the blades of a garbage disposal -- and a key.

Wrapping the knife in a soiled dish rag with some disgust and shoving it in his pocket, he leaned over the sink. Donald and Goofy came up beside him, Donald panting from his tirade and Goofy still shivering. Sora held his hand out over the drain, hesitating.

"What are you doing now?" Donald wheezed.

"There's a key in there!" Sora replied.

"Wah? In the garbage disposal?"

Goofy eyed Sora's hand nervously. "Uh, maybe that isn't..."

Ignoring them, Sora shoved his fingers in the drain. Unable to see what he was doing, the blades of the disposal and the key felt relatively the same -- and the drain was too small to move his thumb. _Ugh, come on. _He could feel his fingers pushing at the blades, clicking and twitching at his touch. His fingertips grazed the key and he struggled to keep it between his fingertips.

"Hurry up!" Donald pleaded.

"Sora..." Goofy whined.

Sora finally got a good grip on the key between his fingers. _Got it! _At that moment, he began to hear a growing hum. _What the...?_

"Watch out!" Goofy yelped. He yanked Sora's arm away from the drain just as the garbage disposal roared to life, spraying bits of debris and blood.

Sora stared in shock from the key in his hand, to the garbage disposal, which was grinding to a halt. Goofy sighed in relief and let go of Sora's arm.

Donald began pummeling Sora in the back with his fists, which was about as high as he could reach. "Sora! What moron goes and sticks their hand in a dark hole?!" he vented.

Sora rubbed the back of his head sheepishly with his free hand. "Sorry, sorry... but we got the key, right?" He held it out for Donald to see.

Donald eyed the key warily. "What does it go to?"

Sora turned it around in his hand and tried to wipe it clean, but there were no distinguishing marks other than its silver color. "Uh, I don't know..." he admitted. Donald's posture sunk in dismay. Sora looked around, eager to share his victory; his face fell. "Where's Goofy?"

Donald and Sora were alone in the knife-strewn kitchen. Donald looked about in confusion. "Goofy? Where'd you go?" he called out.

"I'm in here!" a muffled voice called. Sora and Donald's attention turned to an open door not far from where they had come in. Shoving the key in one of his pockets, Sora ran through the door, Donald on his heels.

On the other side of the door was a small cafeteria. The dead air hung with a rotting stench. The light played over a number of small tables and tipped chairs. Standing amongst them was Goofy. Relieved to see Goofy was alright, Sora walked up to join him -- and froze.

On the table next to Goofy lay the corpse of a Nightmare Dusk on a large platter, burnt and mutilated beyond recognition. Cut into the corpse's skin were the words "Eat Me"; a health drink next to the body was labeled "Drink Me". An enormous roasting fork had been stabbed into the corpse's flank, a number four burnt into the wooden handle.

"Did you... did you do this, Goofy?" Sora whispered, suppressing the urge to gag.

Goofy flinched in shock. "N-no! I was just lookin' for something for Donald..."

"I think I lost my appetite," Donald groaned, clutching his stomach.

Sora ripped the roasting fork from the Dusk's flank, shuddering at the way the body twitched and the skin oozed. "Well, that's number four..."

Donald picked up the health drink and tossed it to Goofy. "Drink this, Goofy!"

Goofy shook his head, ears tossing from side to side. "Nuh-uh, not until you drink yours!"

"No way!"

Sora grabbed Goofy's arm and began to drag him towards the door. "Good job, Goofy, now let's get out of here."

"Hey, wait for me!" Donald huffed, running after them.


	4. Black Fairy

The key matched the small inner stairwell near the patient rooms. Investigating how far it went, they climbed to just above the second floor; the third floor was completely blocked off by debris.

The second floor door trembled with a shuttering screech when Sora pushed against it. They peered into another hallway of doors; the right wing was completely blocked off where the ceiling caved in.

The left side was guarded by a single Nurse, which turned abruptly at the sound of the stairwell door. The radio came to life once again with a mixture of static, clangs, harsh breathing -- and the haunting sound of a woman's voice. "_Sora..._" He froze.

Donald noticed Sora tense beside him and renewed his grip on the golf club. "Not again... Sora! Snap out of it!"

"_Sora, where are you? Where are you, Sora?_"

Goofy grabbed Sora's shoulders and shook them, but Sora continued to stare in horror at the advancing Nurse. "Sora! Wake up!"

The voice in the radio began to scream, "_Sora! Where are you?! Come back! Come back!_" Sora could feeling something burning through him, darkness prickling along the skin of his arm, rising like steam from his fingers. His eyes stung and his breath hissed through his teeth. The radio screamed "_Sora! Sora! Sora!_" as the nurse approached, ready to strike Sora with the carving knife in hand.

"SHUT UP!" Sora bellowed, driving the steel pipe hard into the Nurse's ribcage. The Nurse reeled back against the wall, the knife falling from its hand and clattering against the floor. Sora scooped up the knife, lunged, and plunged the knife into the Nurse's neck. Blood gushed from the wound, spraying Sora's face. Startled, he jumped back and let go of the knife. The creature slumped against the wall, hands reaching out blindly, blood spilling from its neck.

"_So... ra..._" the static crackled. "_Where..._" The Nurse's arms slumped. The static faded out.

For a moment, Sora stood in shock, staring at the body. Donald and Goofy stood by the stairwell, frightened. The darkness swirling around Sora's arm dissipated, and he dropped to his knees. Hot tears flowed from Sora's eyes, mixing into narrow streams with the blood splattered on his face. Lips trembling, his empty hands clutched at the ground, trying to stop the uncontrollable shaking that wracked his body.

Goofy looked from the body, the knife plunged in its neck, down to Sora's trembling back. Goofy, Captain of the Royal Knights, was too ashamed to admit he was scared of his friend. The way Donald hung back uncertainly told him he wasn't alone. The three had been through much together. Goofy had seen the best and the worst of his comrade, but something had definitely changed Sora -- something that might be too difficult even for the amiable Goofy to accept. Still, watching Sora's head sink to the floor, he couldn't just stand back. With steely resolve, he slowly approached Sora. He crouched beside him, peering into Sora's face. "Sora? Are you okay?"

Sora didn't acknowledge Goofy's presence, but Goofy could still see some of his ease of tension, if only by a little bit. The quaking of his back betrayed his ragged breathing. "_Her... voice..._" he whispered.

Curious and embarrassed to be the only one standing back, Donald moved cautiously to Sora's side. "What did you say?" Donald asked.

Sora raised his head off the ground. "It was... m-my mom," he answered shakily. He pushed himself up, trying to wipe his eyes, but only managed to smear more blood into them. "I heard her voice."

Goofy looked up at Donald, who returned the same stunned look. Sora had occasionally mentioned his home -- Destiny Islands -- but he never mentioned his mother. He would talk about the beaches, his friends, or school -- but never his parents. It wasn't something either of them had ever thought to ask. Now it seemed stupid, almost insensitive, to have been so ignorant. It made sense that Sora would miss his family, after being gone from home for so long. He was still a kid, after all.

For the most part, Goofy tried to uphold his duty to the King -- and his duty to his friends -- over his personal feelings. No amount of duty, however, could keep him from missing his friends back at Disney Castle -- and his son, Max, who he had not seen in a long time now. Goofy couldn't help remembering Max when he looked at Sora. Despire him being a rebellious teenager -- he even, at times, seemed to resent his father -- Goofy knew they had a bond as father and son that was irreplaceable. Perhaps that was why Goofy felt he was the most understanding of Sora, and why he felt a need to stay beside him and protect him. It was true he never really mentioned Max around Sora. He could not forget his son; it just didn't seem fair to mention him, when he had someone else he had to take care of now. He was sure Max would understand.

_Does Sora feel something similar?_ Goofy wondered. Was he just too busy to talk about things so personal to him? Or was he trying to keep it from them on purpose?

Donald looked at Goofy, torn as to what to do -- he wasn't good with this sort of stuff. Goofy was lost in thought. Donald looked to Sora, still trying to clear his eyes, and sighed. None of this made any sense. What was wrong with Sora? Why was he acting so weird? "How can you hear her?" he inquired, at a loss what to say.

"I don't know! I just heard it through the radio!" Sora cried, frustrated. His eyes stung, and his head hurt, and he felt dizzy, and he did _not _want to talk about her, he did not. "When I looked at... that _thing_, I heard it!"

Donald leaned back instinctively, holding up his hands in defense. "I believe you! I just want to help!"

Goofy could see this situation was going downhill fast. He looked down the hall and spied a door labeled "Hydrotherapy". Carefully, he set his hands on Sora's shoulders and tried to coax him into getting up. "Come on, Sora, let's go fix your eyes!"

Sora nodded. Patting the ground, he found the steel pipe and grabbed it. He let Goofy lead him over to the door which -- to Goofy's relief -- wasn't locked or broken. Donald tagged along behind, feeling helpless.

The small room they entered was dark and filled with the heavy stench of mildew. Wooden shelves lined the side wall, some of it rotted away and collapsed. A few sinks stuck out of the back wall, only one of which was still intact. The left wall led into a larger room filled with bathtubs. The extra wiring and gadgetry attached to the tubs didn't make much sense to Goofy or Donald. Bizarrely, everything was wet; murky water oozed through the walls, dripped from the ceiling, and trickled through the grout in the tiled floor to drains clogged with mold and lime.

Goofy led the blind and dazed Sora over to the lone sink and tried one of the handles. It was so corroded that it barely moved, but water flowed out of the faucet. What came out could just barely be called water -- it was so thick with rust and mold -- but gradually it began to clear. Sora splashed water on his face, rinsing the blood from his eyes. Blinking, the walls swam into view. Leaning against the sink, he rubbed his eyes and turned to Donald and Goofy, both staring at him in concern. Sora felt his stomach churn with a pang of guilt; he didn't like the look on their faces. _I should have just kept my mouth shut_, he thought bitterly. "Thanks, Goofy," he mumbled. A shaky smile tugged at his cold cheeks.

Goofy nodded. Donald folded his arms and tapped his foot, slapping against the damp floor. "If you're feeling better, Sora, let's get out of here... the air in here is making my feathers stick together," he groaned wretchedly.

Sora patted a hand on Donald's head, pushing his hat down into his eyes. "Right!" Sora leaned off the sink and made for the door. As they moved past the other room, something caught Sora's attention out of the corner of his eye. Curious, he stopped and looked towards the other room, the light turning with him.

Noticing Sora stop, Donald looked back in annoyance. Sora stepped away from them, towards the bathtubs. Feeling a wave of dread, Donald followed, Goofy trailing behind.

Sora walked to one of the tubs in the center of the room and looked up at the wall. The light scrolled across enormous block letters that had been smeared onto the damp wall in blood: _SINS NEVER WASH AWAY_. Stabbed into the last letter was a large shaving knife, a number nine carved into the handle. Fresh blood dripped from the edge of the knife, and oozed out of the letters.

Goofy's eyes strayed to Sora's hands, clutching the edge of the bathtub. Blood trickled out from under his palms, trailing down the sides of the tub. "Sora--!" Goofy cried out in alarm, pointing at Sora's hands. Sora looked up, startled, then down at his hands. He jumped back from the tub, staring at his palms in horror, now soaked in blood.

A dull rushing sound echoed through the walls, intensifying to a roar. All at once the knobs on the bathtubs squeaked and twisted, and torrents of blood exploded from the faucets into the tubs. Sora, Donald, and Goofy screamed as blood poured into the tubs, sloshing against the sides, threatening to spill over. Goofy and Donald scrambled over each other trying to run out of the room, their feet slipping along the wet floor.

"Wait! The knife!" Sora cried. He hesitated; blood was already spilling from the tubs onto the floor, rushing between the cracks in the tiles. Steadying himself against the edge of the tub, he ran towards the wall and grabbed the handle of the shaving knife. With a fierce tug, he ripped the knife from the wall. A stream of blood burst from the wall in its place. The room was now awash with blood; the drains in the floor could not keep up. Sora sloshed across the floor towards his friends, who waited anxiously at the door. Together they fled the room, slamming the door behind them.

The three leaned against the wall, catching their breath. Sora stared down at the shaving knife, and himself, completely soaked. He sighed, slumping down against the wall, and shoved the knife into his pocket. "Number... nine..." he panted.

Donald shivered violently against the wall, clutching the 5-iron to his chest. "I've n-never seen that much b-blood..." he chattered.

"Me n-neither!" Goofy whimpered.

Sora gazed down at his hands, pulling off his soiled gloves and tossing them aside. He turned his hands around in the light. _Sins never wash away_. He shook his head. With a jolt, he realized his hands were empty. _The pipe... where is it? _He looked about wildly and sprang to his feet.

Donald jumped in surprise. "Sora? Where are you going?"

"That pipe I had... I think I left it behind!" Sora made to open the door to the bath again.

Goofy scrambled to his feet, pulling on Sora's arm. "Wait! Let's find something else... don't go back in there!"

He hesitated, looking from the door to Goofy and Donald's anxious faces. Clenching his fist, he pulled his arm away from Goofy. "Yeah, you're right... come on, let's keep looking..."

The next door was labeled "Examining Room 3". It was a long, narrow room with a sickly turquoise hue to the walls and floor. A curtain on a wheeled rack had been pushed against the back wall and practically ripped to shreds. Against the wall lay the lumped and distorted corpse of a Nurse on a gurney. The bit of a manual drill was screwed tightly into its chest, the number ten stamped into the corroded metal. The drill refused to come out without a fight. In the end it took a chunk of sternum along with it. Sora's face paled, but he stuck it in his pocket anyway.

Most of the second floor doors were locked, jammed, or otherwise blocked by piles of rotting garbage and debris. The last open door was the Nurse's Station. They stepped into the large space, looking around. Enormous windows at the back of the room were almost completely boarded up, except for a few thin cracks. Light streamed through the cracks, streaking across the floor, flakes of dust dancing in the rays. Wooden cabinets full of medicine bottles and cluttered desks stood against the walls. The paisley wallpaper was faded and flaking. Pasted all across the wallpaper were pictures -- photographs, drawings, paintings, magazine and newspaper clippings -- all warped and faded beyond recognition by time and water damage. Intrigued, Sora drew closer to the walls to get a better look. One of the photographs was of a young woman holding a child; her face had been scratched out. A familiar ache struck his chest, and he looked away to another, larger photograph posted next to it.

The photo showed the staff posing in front of the hospital. It was so warped and cracked with age, it was impossible to see the faces. Holding against the wall was a long metal rasp, its teeth almost worn away, a number seven etched onto the bottom. Sora pulled it out of the wall, the photo falling on the desk. Donald peered at the object in Sora's hand. "What's that for, Sora?"

"It's for sawing down the sharp edges on fractured bones," Sora rattled off without thinking. He looked up to Donald and Goofy's horrified faces. "Err, I mean... it's what girls use to file their nails," he recanted.

"Ohhh," Donald replied. "I think I've seen Daisy use one of those!"

_What is there to file? Do ducks even have nails? _Sora wondered, placing the rasp with the other items weighing down his pockets. His gaze wandered to the desk, where the photo lay face-down on top of the papers. Sora's attention pulled to something drawn on the back. Holding it to the light, he saw that it was a list. The same two symbols -- a vertical line and a circle -- were drawn down the photo, alternating at random. He turned the photo back and forth, but there was no explanation for the list. Shrugging, he folded it and pocketed it.

With nowhere else to go, and no way to go up, there was only one option: down. The small stairwell led to a short basement hallway.

Across from the stairs was a store room. The rickety metal shelving had mostly collapsed or corroded, taking its smashed and rotted contents along with it. A screwdriver with the number eight carved into the handle hung from a length of electrical wire, strung to a light bulb in the ceiling. Looking for a way to get it down, Sora noticed an enormous fire axe. It had been swung into the metal shelving, hitting it so hard the metal had ripped and curved around it. A trail of blood led from the axe head, down the shelving to the door. With all his strength, Sora wrenched the axe out of the shelving. He cut down the wire, pocketing it with the screwdriver. The three followed the blood trail out of the store room, the axe hanging in Sora's hands.

The trail led to a door marked "Electrical Room". Inside, they were surrounded by a number of fuse boxes, and a seemingly endless amount of wires bolted to and hanging from the walls and ceiling. A length of wire hung from a large box against the wall, the ends frayed where a section had been ripped out.

"Well that explains why the power's out," Sora groaned.

"Maybe we can fix it!" Goofy suggested.

Sora pulled the electrical wire out of his pocket and handed it to Goofy. "Knock yourself out."

Sora and Donald watched in amused fascination as Goofy attempted to tie the frayed wires together. He bit his tongue in concentration, his clumsy fingers fumbling over the tiny wires. He had just finished tying the last of the wires together when a bolt of electricity sparked across the wires, jumping up Goofy's arms. "Yoooow!" Goofy yelped, dropping the wires and falling back against the floor. Sora and Donald doubled up in laughter.

"I didn't mean literally, Goofy!" Sora chuckled. Goofy grinned sheepishly and pushed himself to his feet. Sora walked up to the fuse box and pulled off the cover. He was greeted by the sight of dozens of tiny switches. The labels had all been worn off. "Uh... I wonder which one turns the power back on...?" He began to randomly flip switches. A whirring hum rose in volume as he flipped. A spark suddenly shot out of the box, shocking Sora and cutting off the humming noise. Sora shook his hands with a hiss of pain.

"Are you okay, Sora?" Goofy asked. His fur was still frizzed in some spots.

"Yeah, I'm fine... I guess that wasn't right..." Sora repeated the process a few more times, each time flipping a different set of switches, each time getting shocked when the hum grew too loud. Frustrated, Sora turned away, trying to smooth out the static in his already spiky hair. "Ugh! I'm completely fried! This is going to take forever! " he whined. "How can you possibly know which ones to flip?"

"Do you want me to try, Sora?" Goofy suggested.

"That's okay, Goof'... I don't want you getting shocked anymore..."

"Ah, shucks! It's nothing! I'm shocked all the time," Goofy assured cheerfully.

"I don't think that's something to be proud of!" Donald retorted.

Sora stared at the panel. Something had been drawn in fading black ink at the top of the panel, above either side of the switches. With a jolt of recognition, Sora pulled the photograph from his pocket, flipping to the back. The symbols on the panel were the same as the ones on the list. Excited, he started flipping the switches to match the symbols on the list. The humming sound returned again, growing steadily as he made his way down the panel. Biting his lip anxiously, he flipped the last switch. The hum was soon joined by a cacophony of clicks, thunks, and whirs as electricity flowed through the wires and lights flicked on in the panels.

"Alright!" Sora cheered.

"Now we can take the elevator!" Goofy joined in.

Donald collapsed in relief. "Finally! I can't walk another step."

"H'yuck! I'll carry you, Donald!"

"WAK! Put me down! _Put me down!_"


	5. Fermata in Mistic Air

Sora, Donald and Goofy piled into the small elevator. Donald jumped up and tapped the button for the third floor. The elevator doors closed obediently, and the floor rattled as they began to move. Sora leaned back against the railing in exhaustion. They had been wandering for what felt like days. Now he was resting, he could feel the ache in his legs, and the strain in his arms. The cut on his arm stung. Listening to the tinkle of the elevator music, he tried to believe he could actually relax -- that another monster wasn't waiting for him the moment the elevator doors opened. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, the hauntingly familiar melody stirring up old images.

_A small hand clutched a larger one as the two walked down a long, shiny corridor. He craned his head upwards, seeing the curves of a white uniform, brunette curls flowing from under a cap. Looking away, he tried to take in the bizarre sights around him as they passed by doors: people in gowns, carts of little bottles, chairs with big wheels on them. He decided he wanted to try riding on one of those, if she let him._

_They turned a corner, walking to a door. It had a label on it, but the letters had no meaning to him. The woman beside him knocked, and together they walked inside. _

_The small room was crammed with book shelves, chairs, and floor lamps. A quaint tune played on a record player sitting on a small table, the melody rising and falling. In the center of the room stood a gigantic wooden desk. He gazed up in wonder; he could barely see over the top of the desk. Behind it sat a man in a white jacket, gazing intently upon something, his head in his hand. A pair of glasses were slipping down his nose. _

_He felt the big hand holding his suddenly let go. He looked up in confusion as the woman walked around the desk. The man looked up, smiling in recognition. They pressed their faces together. He frowned; he never understood why they did that, but they always looked happy about it. They were talking to each other, but he couldn't understand what they were saying. Bored and irritated, he walked up to the woman and pulled at her skirt. _

_She shooed him away. Disappointed, he wandered away, and climbed on top of a chair next to the record player. He watched in fascination as the record spun around and around beneath the needle. Folding his arms and leaning against the table, he watched as the adults continued to talk. Something welled up inside him, and he frowned at the player. His tiny hand slapped the needle away, bringing the bright melody to a screeching halt. _

"Sora? You okay?"

Sora opened his eyes to Goofy staring at him. The elevator had stopped; Donald stood in front of the doors, keeping them open. Sora shook his head and pushed away from the wall. "Sorry, just a little tired," he conceded.

The third floor was in an even worse state of repair than the others. They had to bulldoze a path through asbestos-laden debris to make it down the hall. Trudging west took them to a familiar long hallway. It was packed with doors on the left side, none of which opened. Donald pulled in frustration at the lock to door S8 to no avail. Cursing, he jumped away. "Who's going around breaking all the locks in this place?!" he harrumphed, stamping his feet.

"Maybe it's the same person who's hiding all these things for us to find!" Goofy suggested.

Donald glared up Goofy. "If I find him, I am going to--"

"Cool it, Donald," Sora interrupted, leaning on the fire axe. Donald was attempting to strangle something in midair. "We're _all_ sick of this place."

"I can't stand it! I just can't stand it!" Donald cried, flinging himself to the ground and crossing his arms. "I'm tired and hungry and my feet hurt! I want to get out of here!"

"Well we can't!" Sora snapped back. "And we're not getting out until we do what the riddle says! So stop whining and get up!"

"What if they're just playing games with us? Maybe there is no way out!" Donald retorted.

"We don't have a choice!"

"I refuse! If they--"

"Alright, that's enough!" Goofy interrupted.

Donald and Sora looked up in surprise at Goofy, who stared down at them in a mixture of irritation and disappointment. "I don't know what's going on here," he continued in a softer tone. "but whatever it is, we gotta keep going, just like Sora said! Even if there isn't a way out, we'll make one! Fighting's not gettin' us anywhere, and neither is whining! So let's keep looking!"

Donald and Sora glared at one another and looked away, muttering their approval.

There were only two other open rooms in that hall. One was another examination room, so cluttered with the skeletal remains of old bedframes, IV drips, and wheelchairs that they couldn't all fit inside. Tangled in the springs of what had once been a mattress was a pair of forceps, labeled with the number eleven. The rusted old springs ripped Sora's hand when he tried to tear it free, and he silently cursed leaving behind his gloves. The forceps finally came loose, and he pocketed them. _That leaves only one more,_ he noted.

The last room was very small, occupied only by a large shower unit. Sora looked down at himself; he was so covered in blood, dust and dirt that his clothing had completely lost its color and taken on a rust-red hue. He ached for a shower.

"Let's go Sora, there's nothing in here," Donald stated, tapping his foot impatiently.

Sora turned away, glancing at the drain in the floor. Through the grill and a tangle of mold, he could just barely see the teeth of a key. He dropped to his knees.

"Not again," Donald grumbled and trudged over. He stared down into the drain. "How are you going to get it out?"

Sora looked around. "I need something like... like a hook, or a pair of tweezers, or something." He looked down at the scratches on his hand and remembered the pair of forceps. Pulling them out of his pocket, he leaned down against the drain, trying to ease in the forceps through the tight spaces in the drain cover. The forceps clamped down on the key and he pulled up excitedly. The key hit the grill at the wrong angle and tinkled back down against the bottom of the drain. Sora tried again and again, each time hitting the key at the same wrong angle.

Donald rolled his eyes. "Gimme that!" he snapped, snatching the forceps out of Sora's hands. He leaned down against the floor, carefully maneuvering the forceps into the drain. Very carefully, he brought the key up towards them, trying to get the precise angle.

Goofy, who had been inspecting the knobs on the shower, chose this moment to butt in. "Hey, what's that?" he chimed, leaning over Donald.

Donald flinched in surprise and the key clattered back down in the drain. "Goofy!" Donald and Sora shouted in simultaneous protest.

"Oh, sorry..." Goofy twisted his ear apologetically.

With a little extra effort, the key finally came free of the drain. Donald cleared away the muck and grime crusted onto it, revealing a shape similar to the one Sora had recovered earlier.

"It must be for the other stairwell!" Goofy remarked.

"We'll check it out as soon as we clear out that other hallway," Sora assured.

They filed back into the main hall. Around the stairwell was an open door. They entered a small corridor with four small doors on the back wall. The doors were well reinforced, and each had a small glass window set into them. Sora opened the last one on the left to reveal a very small space. The walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in a pillowed padding, yellowed and oddly stained. Something stuck out from the back wall. Intrigued, Sora stepped inside to investigate -- and was startled by the headlight suddenly blinking out. He turned just as the door slammed shut.

It was pitch dark. Running his hand along the door, he couldn't find any knob or anything to try and get it open. He thumped his fist against the window. "Guys, this isn't funny! Open up!" There was no response, and he couldn't see anything. Sora could feel his heart race. Though he never admitted it to anyone -- not even Riku, especially not Riku -- he was afraid of the dark. He could feel sweat trickling down his face as he banged on the door, desperately searching for a way to open it.

A shrill pain snaked its way up his spine and jolted his brain. He dropped to his knees, clutching his head as the hiss of static began to fill his mind. Images and sounds began to pour out uninvited.

_A small boy hid beneath the bed as feet searched around in front of him. He could hear a voice calling out. Suddenly aware of his breathing, he clasped his hands over his mouth. The feet continued to search and he giggled in delight. They paused in front of him, and a face leaned into view, brunette curls falling down in front of him. _

_"There you are, Sora!" _

_A balloon popped. The boy sat in a mess of wrapping paper, throwing the brightly colored paper above his head. Streamers were strung around the room. A shadow fell over him and he looked up. _

_He sat in a small rowboat. A man in glasses sat behind him, his big arms supporting the boy's, helping him row. The waves tossed them gently up and down, up and down, as they approached a tropical island, covered in palm trees and lined with a sandy beach. The boat bumped against a dock, and the boy leaped out, racing down the dock. Boardwalks led to tree houses and secret pathways. Colorful streamers had been strung around the trees. Hearing his name, the boy turned as a group of kids came running up. They piled on top of him, laughing. Something blocked out the sun, and the boy looked up into the shadow of the man. Smiling, he tore himself away and leapt into the man's arms. _

_"Happy birthday, Sora."_

_He was standing in the shiny corridor again, hiding behind the tall legs of the man in glasses, now dressed in a white coat. The man was talking to another man with white hair, also wearing a white coat. At his feet was another, older boy with short white hair and blue-green eyes. The younger boy peered over at him and waved; the older boy looked away sadly. The men finished talking and began to move away. The younger boy tried to look up at the other man, but the look he got back was cold and frightening. The boy clung to the legs of the man with glasses. The other boy followed the man with white hair, moving farther and farther way. _

_The boys were sitting together, brown paper bags on their laps. The younger boy took a bite out of a messy peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. He looked over to the other older boy, who was staring down at his unopened bag. His face suddenly contorted, tears leaking from his eyes. He tried to wipe them away. The younger boy leaned over, asking why he was crying._

_"Momma, she--"_

_Sun poured in through the kitchen windows. The man in glasses sat at a table reading a stack of papers. A young boy watched from the doorway, hesitant. He wandered slowly over to the man, looking up. The man's lips were drawn in a line, his brow furrowed. Gathering up his courage, he pulled at the man's shirt. The man looked down, startled, and sighed._

_"Not now, Sora. Daddy's busy."_

_The boy with white hair stood on the sand, silhouetted against the bright sun. Water lapped at and swirled around his bare feet, pulling back into the ocean. He looked down the beach and pointed. The younger boy turned to follow his gaze and saw a shape laying in the water down the beach. The two ran towards it, and he leaned down to see a girl with red hair. She lifted her head up towards them, squinting against the glare of the sun._

_"W-where am I?" _

_The sun was setting over the ocean as the two boys, now preteens, sat together on the crest of a palm tree. The older boy stared off at the horizon, arms folded. _

_"Kairi came from somewhere, even if she doesn't remember. There must be another world out there. We could find our own home. You, me, and Kairi."_

_He turned to look down at the younger boy. "What do you say, Sora?"_

_The boy pushed open the front door, stepping into the dark living room. He wandered around the empty house. _

_"Mom? Dad?"_

_Getting no response, he trudged back to his room and flopped onto his bed, staring at the window. The curtains turned gently in the evening breeze. Outside, the island was silhouetted faintly against the stars. _

_Waves lapped against the bollards of the dock. The feet of the younger boy and the red-haired girl hung down, swinging together. The sun was setting over the ocean in an orange blaze._

_The girl suddenly spoke. "You know, Riku has changed."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"Well..."_

_He looked up at her face glowing in the sunset. "You okay?"_

_"Sora, let's take the raft and go," she piped up excitedly. "Just the two of us!"_

_"Huh?"_

_"Just kidding!"_

_"What's gotten into you? You're the one that's changed, Kairi!"_

_"Maybe... you know, I was a little afraid at first, but now I'm ready. No matter where I go or what I see, I know I can always come back here. Right?"_

_"Yeah, of course!"_

_"That's good. Sora, don't ever change."_

_"Huh?"_

_"I just can't wait. Once we set sail, it'll be great."_

_He bit his lip and stared out across the ocean._

_Two wooden swords clashed together. The two boys leapt away, sweating in the twilight. The younger boy clutched his sword against the sand. _

_"What about your dad? How can you just leave him?!" _

_The older boy tossed his hair out of his eyes. "He hates me! What will he care if I leave, anyway?" He steadied his sword and rushed towards the other boy, who blocked. "He hasn't looked at me once since Mom left!" _

_"But what about my mom and dad? If I leave, they..." He swung at the older boy, his swing effortlessly blocked. "They..." He swung again, and the other boy parried. The sword hit him hard against the arm and he tumbled down against the ground. _

_The older boy stood over him, clutching his sword. "They hate you, Sora! All you ever do is get in the way!"_

_The younger boy rubbed his arm, glaring up at the other boy. "Shut up! You're lying!" _

_"It's true! They're never around, are they?" _

_"Shut up!" The younger boy leapt up, swinging his sword down at the other boy. The blow was blocked again. _

_"Your dad doesn't love you! He just buys you expensive things to keep you busy!"_

_"Stop it!" He charged again, but the other boy dodged easily. _

_"Your mom hates you! She wants to be alone with your dad, but she has to take care of you instead! She's hated every minute since you were born!" _

_"SHUT UP!" He lunged at the older boy, but was pushed back. He felt his back hit the ground, sand grinding his skin. The sword tumbled out of his hand. He looked up to see the tip of the other boy's sword pointed at his forehead. Tears stung his eyes. "Riku, why..." _

_"They'd be happier without you. You can't back out now. All we have is each other. You, and me." _

_Thunder rumbled in the distance. The boy stared up at a model boat hanging from the ceiling, toy replicas of himself and his friends riding inside. A crack of lightning lit up his room, and his head snapped to the window. He thought of the island, and the raft -- the raft that would take him and his two friends away -- and frowned as lightning sparked over the island. He scrambled out of bed, throwing on his jacket and shoes and running for the door. He could hear his mother calling him from the kitchen; he ignored it. _

_Riku stood with his back to him, staring at a sphere of darkness swirling and crackling in the sky. The storm was raging around them. _

_"The door has opened..."_

_"What?"_

_"The door has opened, Sora! Now we can go to the outside world!"_

_"What are you talking about?"_

_"Once we step through, we might not be able to come back. We may never see our parents again. There's no turning back. But this may be our only chance. We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!"_

_"Riku!"_

_Riku held out his hand towards him, darkness swirling around them. He reached for Riku's hand, straining. He felt himself being pulled back, fear shaking his arms as his hand closed on thin air. _

A sharp pain on his right arm sucked him back to reality. It was dark, so dark. His heart was beating so fast he thought it might explode. Fear flooded his mind, drowning out his thoughts. He fell against the wall, clutching his knees against his chest, clenching his eyes shut. _Why is it so dark... why... Riku..._

_"We can't let fear stop us! I'm not afraid of the darkness!"_

_That's right, that time... Riku... I... I don't want to be afraid, either. But, I... I'm so scared..._

Sora opened his eyes, squinting against the light. He was lying on his side. The door was open and Donald was staring down into his face.

"Sora! What happened?"

"Huh?" Sora muttered in confusion, shielding his eyes. "Didn't you guys close the door?"

Donald and Goofy exchanged glances. "Gosh, Sora, we didn't do anything," Goofy replied. "You walked in the room and you just toppled over!"

Donald nodded in agreement. "You wouldn't wake up! Goofy was really worried!"

"You were too, Donald!"

Sora blinked up at them. "I did? But... I thought..."

"It's okay, Sora, you're probably just tired is all!" Goofy reassured.

"Besides, look what we found!" Donald exclaimed. He held out a metal instrument that Sora had first seen sticking out of the wall. It was a hollow cylinder, one of the ends coming to a sharp point, the other open. A number twelve was engraved into it. Sora recognized it as a trocar; feeling too dizzy and shaken to want to explain what gruesome uses this had, he took it and shoved it in his pocket.

"That's all of them, right?" Goofy asked.

Sora nodded. "Well, there's only one more room we haven't checked..."

* * *

The last open door on the third floor led to a large storage room. To their mutual disappointment, it was empty except for a standing wash basin, and a mirror that covered the entire length of the back wall.

_Now what? _Sora thought, walking up to the mirror to check his reflection. For a moment, he couldn't recognize the person looking back. Every inch of him was filthy and covered in a layer of dried blood; he tried to wipe some of the grime off his face to no avail, only succeeding in smudging it around. Deep, dark rings under his eyes betrayed just how exhausted and shaken he was. _Maybe I was just dreaming. Maybe this is all just a bad dream. _

"Come on, Sora, let's get moving!" Donald called from the doorway, where Goofy waited.

"Coming..." he answered with a sigh. He was about to turn away when a movement in the reflection drew him back. He stared as a tendril of some dark red substance snaked out of the basin drain. It weaved out of the drain, splitting and multiplying as it flowed with a sickening squelch. Sora looked from the clean wash basin next to him, back to the reflection in the mirror. The pulsating tendrils of blood spilled over the basin onto the floor, climbing out in all directions. He watched in fascinated horror as they touched his feet, snaking their way up his legs. He looked back and forth, back and forth, between the reflection and himself, as the dark substance swallowed his legs, moving up his torso. _What the hell...?_

"Sora? What are you looking at?" Goofy called.

Sora looked at Donald and Goofy's reflections in the mirror. The dark tendrils were weaving their way out across the floor towards them. "N-nothing, it's nothing," he stuttered. _I'm just tired. I'm just seeing things. This isn't real. They'll think I'm crazy._

He tried turning away again, wanting to ignore the images in the mirror, only to be struck with the realization that his reflection was not moving with him. It was frozen in place, completely covered in the dark substance. The eyes of his reflection glowed yellow as the substance engulfed the room in the mirror.

Just then he noticed a sound reverberating inside the walls: a long, wailing siren, soft at first and growing in intensity, repeating. The three looked around the room in confusion.

"Do you guys hear...?" Sora started.

"Y-yeah," Goofy replied.

"What is it?"

"Sounds like an air raid siren," Donald suggested, trying to keep his legs from shaking.

"A wha--" Sora was cut off by a loud squelch coming from the wash basin. He turned and backed away as the blood tendrils climbed out the basin on their side of the mirror, rushing down onto the floor. His reflection in the mirror was beginning to move on its own, blinking at them through the mirror, its hand on the glass. "Run!" he shouted.

Donald, who was closest to the door, tugged at the knob. The door didn't budge. "It's locked!" he cried.

Sora ran to join Donald and Goofy. He hammered his fist on the door. "Come on, come on!" he muttered. The siren grew louder and louder, vibrating inside his head and shaking dust from the ceiling. The tendrils spread across the floor and up the walls, consuming the room. Together the three of them kicked, hit, and beat at the door to no effect. They huddled together as the darkness gathered around them, and climbed up their bodies. Donald and Goofy frantically attempted to shake and scrape it off. Too frightened to move, Sora clenched his eyes shut, the siren blaring in his ears. A loud shattering noise made him jump in shock. He opened his eyes to see a pair of yellow eyes staring back at him, inches from his face.

Everything went red, then black.


	6. Ashes and Ghost

"Wake up."

Sora's eyes flew open. He stared up at the ceiling, a field of riveted sheet metal rusting above his head. His eyes drifted to the mirror -- now in thousands of pieces -- and over to the walls. They were a deep red, and seemed to be moving, as if animated by millions of veins twisting and pulsating together. Disturbed, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Donald and Goofy were collapsed nearby. Thrown off his head, the headlight shined across the floor towards them.

Something dark moved into Sora's view and he instinctively backed away. A tall figure in a black coat was standing in front of him. The hood drawn over the stranger's head blocked out any view of his face.

Sora felt a surge of anger working its way from inside him. "You--!" He snatched the fire axe from where it lay nearby and jumped to his feet. He held the axe out towards the cloaked figure, arms straining to hold its weight. His head swam and his vision spotted with black from rising to his feet so fast. "You're from the Organization, aren't you? What's going on here? Why are you doing this?"

The stranger ignored him. The hood turned as the man looked around the room, appraising it. "It's fascinating, isn't it, Sora?" a deep voice spoke from under the hood. "What fear creates."

"What are you talking about?" Sora cried. "Answer me! It's you, isn't it? I don't know what you did, but I know it's you!"

The man hardly moved, giving the axe a passing glance. "Me? Tell me, how can you be so sure that it was I who created all of this?" He waved a gloved hand at the walls around them.

"You're from the Organization! That's all I need to know!" Sora snapped.

The figure paused, and stepped towards Sora. "You're afraid of me, aren't you?"

Sora brandished the axe, struggling to keep it up off the floor. "Of course not! I'm not afraid!"

"Really?" The man stepped closer to Sora. Sora's grip tightened on the handle of the axe. The cloaked figure was close enough now that he could reach out and touch Sora's jacket. Startled, he stepped back. The figure stopped, letting his hand drop. "Then why are you hesitating?"

Sora threw his remaining strength into swinging the axe. The movement was so labored that the man easily grabbed the hilt mid-swing. He tugged the axe out of Sora's grip and tossed it aside. "Don't you want to kill me?"

"Get away from me!" Sora screeched, backing away. His shoes crunched down on shards of glass, and his back hit the wall where the mirror had been. His eyes darted to Donald and Goofy, who lay unconscious on the floor.

The man followed Sora's gaze listlessly. "Your friends can stay out of this for now," he remarked before turning back. He stood in front of Sora, staring down into his eyes, wide with a mixture of fear and hatred. Leaning down, he placed his hands against the wall on either side of Sora's head.

Sora felt his heart pounding in his chest, the hooded man blocking his view of anything else. He wanted to reach for one of the blades in his pockets, but his hands wouldn't move. He could see a very faint outline of the man's face as he leaned in closer, blotting out the dim light.

"Why are you afraid of the dark, Sora?" the voice whispered. "What have you done?"

Sora clutched at the wall. He felt dizzy; it was hard to keep the shadow in front of him in focus. "I haven't done anything! I'm not like you!"

"You're not? Then what's this?" Before Sora could react, the cloaked shadow grabbed his right arm. Sora stifled a cry as a burst of pain ignited along the skin of his arm. Something dark and wispy flowed out from under the man's gloved fingertips.

"It's... your fault..." Sora gasped, trying to ignore the pain climbing up his arm. "You're... doing this to me."

The man ignored him, watching the dark flames flit up Sora's arm. "If you won't accept the darkness inside you, it will consume you, sooner or later." He let go of Sora's arm, the flames disappearing with the pain. Sora clutched his arm protectively.

"Why should I listen to you?" Sora grimaced. "You guys are always pretending you know all about me. Sorry, but it's not going to work anymore."

The cloaked stranger leaned away. "Are you sure that _you_ know who you are?"

Sora puffed out his chest. "Of course I do! I'm the Keybearer!"

The man gave a scoff of laughter and turned away, walking towards the door. "If you seek the truth," he spoke over his shoulder. "You'll meet me at the church across the lake. We can confess our sins together."

"Don't count on my forgiveness," Sora sneered.

The cloaked stranger opened the door, disappearing into the black on the other side. The door clicked shut behind him.

Donald and Goofy stirred awake. Donald sat up, blinking. "Wha... what happened?"

Sora staggered away from the wall, picking the fire axe and headlight off the floor. "Not sure. You guys alright?" He set the headlight back on his forehead, turning it towards them. They looked dazed, but unharmed.

"I've been better!" Donald answered, dusting himself off.

Goofy looked shakily around the room. "Gawrsh, it sure looks different now. Awful s-spooky."

"Don't let it get to you, Goof'," Sora said. "It's probably just some Nobody trick."

"What makes you say that?" Donald asked, looking suspicious.

Sora hesitated. "Just a hunch," he dismissed. He headed for the door. "Come on, let's keep going."

Donald and Goofy gathered up their weapons and followed after Sora. He peered outside.

The hallway had completely changed. The floor was now a rusty metal grating, opening onto the darkness of the floor below. The walls were a fleshy color, moving and oozing. A thick, steamy haze filled the air. A wall blocked the path to the elevator, pulsing with a faint heartbeat. Looking towards the staircase, he stopped dead, struggling to keep a grip on the fire axe.

The hallway in-between the storeroom and the stairwell was crammed with Nurses, all holding a different bladed weapon. They appeared listless until Sora looked over at them; the instant the light touched them, they all snapped to attention, jerking and twitching. The radio roared to life with metallic wailing.

Suppressing a scream, he slammed the door shut. The radio died down to a light smolder. Donald and Goofy looked at him quizzically.

"What's out there?" Donald pried.

"Nurses. L-lots of them," Sora gulped.

"What are we gonna do?" Goofy said. "We can't fight all of them."

Sora cracked open the door, peering around the doorframe. Without the light, the Nurses had frozen in place. "You're right... we can't," Sora whispered. "We're going to have to sneak past."

"What? How?" Donald sputtered, incredulous.

Sora fiddled with the buttons on the radio, finally cutting off the static. "Well, they seem to react to light... so if we move by them in the dark... they might not see us."

"What if they do?"

Sora clapped Donald on the shoulder. "Then you stay behind and help distract them while me and Goof' make an escape. Don't worry, I'll tell the King all about your brave sacrifice."

"Wa-wait a minute--"

"Ready? Okay, I'm turning off the light!" Sora held up his fingers. "3, 2--" They were plunged in darkness.

"_Sora! I can't see a thing!_" Donald fumed.

"Shh! Here, let's hold hands."

"_Wak! _That's not my hand!"

"Whoops, sorry."

"Sora, where are you?" Goofy whispered.

"I'm right here!"

"Oh, there you are, h'yuck."

"Goofy, that's me!"

"Gosh, sorry, Donald..."

"_Why didn't we do this with the lights on?!_"

"Okay, let's go!"

The door creaked as it opened out into the hallway. Sora could feel them all collectively wince at the sound. The hallway and its crowd of occupants were barely visible in the faint, feverish glow emanating from the walls. The humid warmth of the air, the slow hiss of steam, and the sickly movement of the walls gave Sora the unsettling impression of being underneath his skin. Sora felt Donald and Goofy's hands clutch his as they approached the gaggle of Nurses, their dark bodies twitching as they sought their prey in the darkness. Their empty gazes stared past the creeping forms of Sora, Donald and Goofy. Donald sucked in his gut as they squeezed in-between two Nurses clutching steel pipes. Sora's heartbeat pounded in his ears. Goofy tried to swallow a lump in his throat. Slowly, slowly the three coursed their way through a maze of monsters. The stairwell door was in sight, and Sora was beginning to breathe a sigh of relief, when he felt Goofy stumble beside him. Goofy yelped in surprise and Sora threw his hands over Goofy's mouth to stifle it, but the damage was done -- the Nurse beside them snapped to attention.

"DOWN!" Sora bellowed, and Sora and Goofy hit the floor as a knife swung above them. It sliced at the tip of Donald's hat and into the Nurse on the other side of them. Alarmed but blind, the other Nurse swung a pair of scissors, stabbing them into the chest of the first.

The hall was soon filled with a panic of Nurses attacking whatever lay within arm's reach. Sora, Donald and Goofy -- separated in their surprise -- dodged and scrambled for the door. Goofy made it first, Sora just behind. Sora tugged at the locked door and was broadsided by the realization that Donald still had the key. Donald was dodging attacks wildly, abandoning the useless golf club in an effort to make him a less accessible target.

"Donald! The key!" Sora shouted over the din of screaming Nurses. The sound drew the attention of a few Nurses close by, and Sora felt his heart leap into his throat.

"I'm comin', buddy!" Goofy called, and jumped back into the fray before Sora could stop him. Goofy grabbed the duck around the middle with one arm and began to bowl his way out of the crowd, trash can lid in front of him. Sora watched anxiously as the two returned.

Donald blinked in bemusement at Goofy's side. "Thanks, Goofy," Donald wheezed.

"H'yuck, it was nothin'!"

"KEY! NOW!" Sora barked, exasperated. The befuddled Nurses had regained their composure, and the survivors lumbered towards them.

"Alright, hold your horses!" Donald huffed, pulling the key out of his pocket. Sora snatched it up and shoved it in the lock, flinging the door open. Shoving Donald and Goofy inside, he grabbed the other handle and pulled at the door. He caught a glimpse of bloodied Nurses reaching for them as the door slammed shut, plunging them into complete darkness. Fists pummeled the door, growing louder with the addition of weapons and the slam of bodies. Sora hurriedly locked the door and stepped away, backing into Donald.

"OW! My foot!" Donald screeched.

"S-sorry, Donald..." Sora muttered, distracted.

"Turn the light back on already!"

Sora fumbled for the switch on the headlight with unsteady fingers. He winced as the narrow space was filled with light once again. The three stared with bated breath at the door as the thumps, bangs and screams died out. When a tense minute had passed by without sound, Sora dropped to the ground.

"We made it," he sighed with relief. He clutched at his chest, feeling his heart pounding underneath.

"Yeah, no thanks to Goofy," Donald scoffed, making a very frugal attempt at brushing himself off.

Goofy scowled. "Hey, I saved your life!"

"I wouldn't have needed saving if you weren't so clumsy!" Donald squawked.

Sora glared at them. The light shining in their eyes temporarily threw them off. "Knock it off! If that's the way you're going to be, Donald, then we should have just left you behind!"

Donald folded his arms and turned up his bill. "Well I had the key! You wouldn't have gotten anywhere without me!"

Sora pushed himself shakily to his feet. "You guys can fight this one out, but I'm getting out of here before those Nurses come back." He swayed past Donald and Goofy and climbed the stairs, the metal grating clanging under his stomping feet.

Goofy looked from Donald's crossed arms to Sora's disappearing back. Frowning, he ran after Sora, calling "Sora! Wait for me!"

Donald watched them go as the landing was steeped in darkness. He clutched his arms, feeling his anger fade away with the light. Now that he was alone, he couldn't understand what was making him so aggressive. Donald's temper was normally short, but here he felt as if he had an unusually short fuse. _It's something about this place! It's making me so tired, _he thought wearily. The darkness put him on edge, and with a shiver he groped for the stairs, chasing after Sora and Goofy.

At the top of the stairs was a short, narrow corridor. Standing below a darkened "Exit" sign, Sora and Goofy's backs blocked Donald's view of the end of the hall. He kept his distance, grappling with what to say; apologies were never his strong point. Donald pulled off his battered hat and turned it around in his hands. "Uh... Sora... Goofy... I'm sorry about... what I said." They didn't move. Donald resisted the urge to chew on his hat. "I didn't mean it, so... please don't leave me behind." He stared up at Goofy and Sora's motionless backs. Frustrated, he shoved his hat on his head. "Hey, what's the matter with you two?!" Donald stepped closer to them. "I'm trying to say I'm--"

Donald froze. He was staring up at what had once been the door to the roof. Now, it was nearly unrecognizable under twisting layers of electrical wiring. In the midst of it all, the mutilated corpse of a Nurse had been strung up, legs tied apart and arms pinned up above its head. Wires threaded in and out of its pale bruised skin, clustering around points on its body where numbers had been cut into the skin. Donald felt his stomach churn as he realized that part of the mass of warped skin on the Nurse's face had been pulled away, leaving half of a woman's face. Her wide blue eye stared past them at some unseen horror, and the half of her mouth left was twisted in a silent scream.

Sora couldn't tear his eyes away from hers. Distantly, he knew he was shaking, and felt the sting of a tear running down his cheek. Something dark and deep was threatening to rise and swallow him if he didn't blink. If he could only look away. "M-mom?" he whispered.

Her blue eye shot towards him. The grimacing lips contorted into a smile, blood trickling from the edges. "_Sora. Oh, Sora. You came back to me._"

Sora tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but his mouth was dry. "I... Mom, is it really you? What... what happened to you?"

"_Sora... why did you leave me, Sora? Why did you leave me?_"

"I'm sorry, Mom... I didn't want to go... I just had to make things right again, I had to..."

Her face shifted from sadness to a pained rage. "_Liar!" _she screamed. Sora flinched. "_Liar! You hate me, Sora! You hate me!_"

Hot tears forced their way out from Sora's eyes. His knees threatened to buckle. "No! That's not true!" he cried.

"_You killed me, Sora! You hurt me! Look what you've done to me!_" she screeched. Blood trickled out of the numbers carved into her skin, and spat out of her mouth. "_I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!_"

"No! Mom!"

"_I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!_"

"I'm sorry! Mom! Mom!"

"Sora!"

He stumbled backwards and lost his balance, hitting his head against the ground with a sharp thud. The figures of Donald and Goofy swam in front of his vision. Sora felt someone grab his arm and try to pull him back to his feet.

"Are you okay?" Sora heard Donald say. His sight was slowly coming back into focus. The face of the corpse was back to the way it was before -- silent, wide-eyed and staring.

Sora tried to steady himself on his feet. "Yeah, I... no, I'm not okay! Didn't you just see that?"

"See what?" Goofy asked.

"Her! She was just talking to me!" Sora cried, pointing at the lifeless corpse.

Goofy looked from the Nurse to Sora. "Sora, it didn't do anything!"

"Yeah, you were just staring at it! And now we're at a dead end, too! Goofy was just asking you what we should do now!" Donald added.

Sora shook his head. He winced at the throbbing pain at the back of his head, jolting against the sides of his skull. "I don't know, I don't know what to do! I thought the answer would be here!" he moaned, staring at the Nurse. His eyes strayed to the corpse's stomach. He was so drawn to its face that he had not given the rest of the body much thought. Now he realized that something had been written on the fabric of the dress. He leaned in to get a better look.

_scattered collected_

_current rejected_

_pieces connected_

_circuit corrected_

Sora looked down and noticed lengths of frayed wire sparking at the body's feet. Looking up, more wires were drilled inside the top of the corpse's skull, leading up to the exit sign. In-between were the numbers, cut with surgical precision -- one on each foot, each knee, each hand, each shoulder, and one on the abdomen, neck, and forehead. The numbers climbed up her body from one to twelve. Remembering the items loading down his pockets, he pulled out the numbered instruments one by one and laid them on the floor.

Donald craned his neck to see what Sora was doing. "What are those for?"

Sora turned each item around in the light to find its number and started putting them in order. His mind was working frantically to process the memories bouncing around his head -- memories of old conversations and observations that he had found boring and inconsequential at the time, but now seemed vitally important. "Donald, do you know what the nervous system is?"

"H'yuck, that's your brain, isn't it?" Goofy replied.

"Hey! He asked me!" Donald huffed.

"It's the system in your body that carries messages around. It controls your muscles, your breathing, your heart." He turned the trocar around in his hand at set it aside. "Do you know what it uses to send messages?"

Goofy and Donald exchanged looks, both shaking their heads.

Sora tapped the wires criss-crossing along the walls. "Electricity. Wires are just like the nerves in your body, carrying electricity from one point to another." He turned to the body and pointed at the number one carved on the right foot. "We need to direct the current from here," he traced the numbers up the body, "to here," he concluded, tapping the forehead. The head twitched at his touch. "The numbers all point to major nerves," he continued. "so it's possible we can use them to direct the electricity."

Goofy felt his head spinning around trying to take in this information. "How are we gonna do that?"

Sora picked the surgical scissors out of the line. He glanced up at the body's face once more and took a deep breath. _It's not my mother. It's just a monster. She can't be my mother. I don't have the be afraid_, he repeated like a mantra inside his head. "Connecting the dots," he answered, and he stabbed the scissors into the number one before he could think twice about the wrenching feeling in his gut.

Donald and Goofy backed away, stunned, as Sora scooped the items off the floor and matched them with their places on the Nurse's corpse. Blood splattered his already drenched clothing, as he grew more absorbed with the strain of forcing the instruments into the decaying flesh. He hesitated when he reached the face. The glazed eye stared straight past him. The echoes of a woman's screaming words floated inside his head. _Look what you've done to me! I hate you! I hate you! _His hands clutched the trocar, shaking. _I hate you! I hate you! I hate you! _He wrenched his eyes shut and swung his fists at the Nurse's forehead with all the strength he could muster. A loud crack accompanied the impact, and blood exploded out of the hollow cylinder and doused Sora's face.

Electricity sparked around the corpse's feet, singeing the skin. It leapt greedily at the scissors and scalpel, and branched upwards. Sora stepped back as the body convulsed against the wall, the blue eye rolling back into its skull. The red letters of the exit sign flickered to life, pulsing with the electrical current. There was a loud click inside the wall, and the door behind the corpse began to pull away. The wires stretched and snapped as the door yawned open with a tremendous creak, showering them with sparks.

The beam from the headlight dissipated into the darkness of the rooftop. Sora looked back at Donald and Goofy, who eyed him with apprehension. Scooping up the fire axe, Sora turned to the door and stepped out into the open air.

As he gazed about at the metal grating stretching below his feet, he wondered just how long they had been inside the hospital. Fog obscured the inky blackness of the air around him, and he wondered how many nights had passed since they first came here -- if (and he felt cold at the thought) it was night at all. The light in front of him reflected off the swirls of fog, but no matter what direction he turned, there was nothing to see but fog and metal.

Goofy and Donald crept up next to him, also looking around. "Gosh, there's nothing up here," Goofy remarked.

Donald flopped onto the ground with an audible sigh. "What do we do now? What was the point of all that?" he moaned.

Sora shifted the light towards a small, dark structure, not far from the roof entrance. There was a flash, and Sora caught a glimpse of a silhouette in the shadows before clapping his hands over his eyes from the shock of the light. A deep rumble rushed towards the three and grew to a deafening roar, reverberating in the grating beneath their feet.

Thunderstorms were common on Destiny Islands, and Sora had lived through his share of them. The loud ones were his favorite, and he loved to count down the seconds after a flash to find out just how close the lightning was, while the thunder shook dust from the ceiling like powdered snow.

Sora knew that wherever he was now, it was far from Destiny Islands. There was no safety from the storm here.

As his ears slowly recovered from trauma of the thunderclap, he began to hear the slow, shrieking scrape of metal dragging across the ground. Forcing his eyes open, he glanced about in the darkness, but only fog surrounded them. The sound continued to scraaaaape, scraaaaape, towards them. Sora felt his palms sweat on the handle of the fire axe.

"W-what's that?" Donald stuttered. His knees shook as he tried to place the source of the noise.

Sora didn't answer. The radio on his belt was pulsing with crackles of static. He stared blindly in front of him as the sound grew closer and closer. Movement danced on the fringes of the light, and slowly a figure stepped into view.

A long, roughly sewn and heavily stained skirt flowed down the curves of its hips, brushing the ground. The material pulled haphazardly across its breasts interrupted the milky skin of a bare midriff. Its thin, bare arms dragged an enormous sword, its jade color deeply veined, and its blade branching off in rhythmically sharp angles and spikes up the length of the tang. A hulking helmet, shaped roughly like a stretched pyramid, obscured the figure's head and a good portion of its shoulders. Wires intertwined and stretched across the vast, dark metal surface.

It paused as they regarded one another. Donald was the first to react. "T-he t-he t-he P-pyramid thing!" he squawked.

"Let's get out of here!" Goofy yelped, clutching the trash can lid in front of him. "Remember what James said?"

Donald didn't need reminding. He was already heading for the door. Goofy started to follow before realizing they were missing someone. Sora stood, transfixed, as the creature drew closer to him.

"Sora! Watch out!" Goofy cried.

There was another blinding flash. Sora caught just a glimpse of jade before he dodged the thrust of the monster's sword. The surprise of the attack and the roar of thunder nearly knocked him off his feet. Lightning sparked along the metal grating and clustered on the spikes of the sword. The pyramid turned to regard Sora's new position.

"Get out of there!" Donald shouted, hovering near the relative safety of the doorway.

Panic and fear clashed and flung thoughts around Sora's head. He started to back up, his mind screaming at him to make a run for it. Through the crackling static, he heard what sounded like a woman's laughter. He was struck with the memory of chasing a light figure into fog.

The image transformed into a mixture of white-hot desperation and inexplicable rage that pooled like a curling demon inside his stomach and burst outwards. Darkness burst from every pore of his arm in a blast of pain, fanning the flames of resolve that cut through the fear like a hot knife. The sensation of raw power poured into him, burning inside his muscles and staining his vision yellow.

"Where's Riku?!" Sora shouted. The figure's helmet tilted, and it pulled at the heavy sword for another attack. Brandishing the fire axe, he leapt at the creature. The blade struck its arm with a force that would have shattered a human arm -- instead, it grazed the surface, making the creature shriek in surprise. Sora ripped the blade away and dodged as the creature swung towards him. Sparks flew off the forks of the blade, hitting him with a cascade of stinging shocks. The pain was a distant annoyance. The darkness swirling and bubbling on his skin crawled slowly across his chest and up his neck. "Where's Riku? What did you do to him?!" he screamed.

Donald and Goofy looked on in hesitant torment as Sora and the monster traded blows, edging slowly towards the edge of the roof. Without a weapon or magic, Donald was feeling more helpless than ever -- and with only a trash can lid at his side, Goofy was not feeling much more confident. A bolt of lightning struck the far corner of the roof, and they hit the ground in surprise as thunder bellowed around them like an explosion. The battle between Sora and the strange enemy went on uninterrupted, the headlight casting frantic shadows around them.

Goofy pushed himself to his feet and ran towards Sora. "Sora! Stop!" he hollered.

Donald stared for a second in disbelief before charging after his friend. "Goofy, no!"

Distracted, the pyramid helmet turned towards Donald and Goofy. Seizing the chance, Sora swung the fire axe with a strained roar.

The blade struck the creature in the chest. Its piercing screamed was cut short by a bolt of lightning that tore through the ground beneath them.

The force of the impact sent Sora, Donald and Goofy flying over the edge of the roof. Thunder drowned out their screams as they hurtled down into the darkness.


	7. Forest

_He stood at the end of a long hall. Everything around him was a stark, cold white. Columns lined the hall on either side, towering above him. At the end of the hall above a short set of steps was a set of double doors, their pale gold beckoning to him. The tap tap tap of his footsteps echoed around the walls as he drew closer to the doors. He reached for the curving handles and hesitated; there was a nagging feeling in his mind that he was forgetting something. A cursory glance behind him was enough to reassure that the hall was empty. He pulled open the door._

_A floating staircase rose above him in the middle of a vast, dark space. In the distance he could hear the faint tapping of footsteps running above him. His heart leapt. "Wait!" He ran up the stairs in pursuit. No matter how fast he ran the sound of the footsteps stayed ahead. He gasped for air, chest heaving. His legs were aching and he struggled to keep climbing, as they grew heavier. Whispers of unintelligible conversations drifted around him, growing louder as the ground below sank away. _

_The floating steps behind him began to drop. He struggled to keep up, but soon the steps beneath his feet were dropping out from under him. He leapt forward and clung to the steps, wincing as they gave way and he fell. Wind rustled his clothing and rushed past his ears, drowning out the sound of his own scream as he fell down towards the darkness._

His body slammed against the ground and Sora flinched, eyes blinking open in shock. He was lying on the ground, scattered blades of grass and dirt stretching out in front of his eyes. Donald and Goofy were whispering to one another a short distance away, eerily lit by the headlight lying at their feet. The familiar sight of his friends pulled him back to reality. The heartbeat threatening to burst from his chest slowed, and he breathed a deep sigh. _Just a dream_, he thought wearily.

Sora groaned as he pushed himself up, looking around. They were outside in a large, enclosed grassy area. It might have been a garden if it had any actual vegetation in it; it was overgrown with dead weeds. It was light out again -- as light as it got, Sora guessed. It was still too dark and foggy to see much outside the limits of the garden. He looked up at the side of the hospital, but could just barely see the edge of the roof where they had fallen off. _Oh yeah, we fell off the roof. _The realization struck him as he thought. _Wait, what?_ He swayed to his feet, heading towards Donald and Goofy.

Donald was sorting through an assortment of items laid out on the ground in front him. Goofy was trying to fix the dents and rips in the trash can lid. He looked up as Sora approached and collapsed on the ground in front of them.

"Are you okay, Sora?" Goofy asked, ducking his head down to see Sora's face.

"I guess so..." Sora shrugged. He felt fine except for a dull pain in his arm and chest. Considering the last thing he remembered was a bolt of lightning and being thrown off a roof, he was a little puzzled.

Donald scooped one of the bottles off the ground and held it out towards Sora. The red liquid inside sloshed against the side of the glass. "Here, drink this!"

Sora eyed the bottle skeptically. "What's that?"

"It'll make you feel better!"

He took the bottle from Donald, staring inside. It certainly didn't look like something that would make him feel _better_. The stench rising from the bottle gave him a rush of nausea. He gagged. "So? Anyone want to fill me in? What happened?"

Goofy set the trash can lid aside. "Gosh, Sora, I don't know... you were fighting that pyramid thing... I ran out to help ya --"

"Me too!" Donald interjected.

"-- and there was this bright flash, and next thing I knew, Donald was waking me up!"

Sora glanced at Donald. "How 'come you didn't wake _me_ up?"

Donald shifted uncomfortably and shuffled through the papers on the ground. "You looked pretty tired, so I thought you'd want to sleep!"

"Yeah, we haven't slept in... uh..." Goofy gazed upwards, pursing his lips. "Well, I dunno! A while."

Sora took a sip of the drink. He immediately did a spit take, spraying Donald.

"Hey! What's the big idea?!" Donald squawked, frantically shaking off the droplets.

"How can you drink this?" Sora gasped.

"It's not so bad! I drank a whole bottle!" Goofy beamed. Sora stared at him in blanched horror.

Donald glanced down at the items in front of him and brightened. "Oh yeah! Sora! Look what I found!" He grabbed two of the items off the ground and passed them to Sora. Sora set the health drink aside and held the items towards the light.

One was a bronze key. A tag trailed from the end, "Pharmacy" written in fading, smudged letters. The other item was a piece of plastic the size of a playing card. On the front was a crudely drawn image of a gray tower. A jagged yellow lightning bolt was striking the top of the tower, and three little stick figures were falling towards the ground. Sora frowned; the stick figures looked awfully familiar. He flipped the card around, but there was nothing on the backside -- just a number of small holes on the bottom.

Goofy peered at the key. "Hey! Isn't that the key we were lookin' for?"

"Only one way to find out," Sora grinned. He pocketed the key and the card, and pulled the headlight on over his head so it hung loosely around his neck. Gathering up the rest of their supplies, they headed for the door back into the hospital.

The interior had changed back to the way it was -- collapsed ceilings, moldy walls, chipping paint. A set of doors that had been locked before now opened into the first floor hallway. Everything appeared as before, except for one small detail -- the corpses were gone. Sora glanced at Donald and Goofy to see if they had noticed, but they were fixated on getting to the pharmacy. Apparently this morbid detail had not crossed their minds.

The "pharmacy" was actually a cramped, dusty room crammed with shelves and cabinets full of medical supplies. To their mutual disappointment, most of the supplies had been destroyed when the shelving caved in. They managed to salvage from the wreckage a packaged syringe filled with a red substance labeled "Ampoule" (Sora shuddered -- he hated needles), another health drink, and a first-aid kit. Sora unpacked the first aid kit and attended to Goofy's wounds and his own in turn. He remembered bandaging his teddy bears as a kid, and smiled -- how far he seemed now from then, how different the blood and torn skin to stuffing pushing out of ripped fabric.

Donald continued to paw through the debris. He pulled a metal walking stick out from behind a cabinet with a triumphant flourish.

"You look kind of like Scrooge with that thing," Sora snickered, packing the leftover supplies back into the box.

Donald scowled. "I'm nothing like Uncle Scrooge!" he fumed, stamping his foot.

"Yeah, you're dirt poor."

Donald brandished the cane in Sora's direction. "Why, you--!"

"I'm just kidding, Donald, relax," Sora laughed, hold up his hands to ward away the cane. "Come on, there's nothing else here."

"Where are we going?" Goofy asked, pawing at the gauze on his ear.

Sora froze in the doorway. Sooner or later he knew he had to tell them about the mysterious figure that spoke to him in the mirror room. He didn't want to explain that he was derailing their objectives just so he could settle a score. "We gotta keep looking for a way out of here, right? So come on, let's go."

To Sora's relief, Donald and Goofy did not seem suspicious, and they followed him out. The front entrance had completely changed since they last saw it -- the wires and warping had disappeared. Donald tentatively reached for the handles, but this time there was no electric shock. The doors creaked open into the courtyard, and the three piled out.

Donald let out an enormous sigh. "Finally! I thought we'd never get out of there," he groaned. "I told you it was a bad idea!" He glared up at Sora.

"Yeah, but we got the supplies, didn't we?" Sora smirked.

"Well, yeah! But..."

"Hey, look at this!" Goofy called. He was standing nearby waving a piece of paper. Sora and Donald walked over to have a look.

The paper was yellowed and the top edge was torn, as if it had been ripped out of a book. A crayon drawing of trees took up most of the paper. In the center was a large red circle with symbols Sora didn't recognize. A squiggly brown line rose from the bottom of the paper towards the red circle. "Huh? What's that supposed to be?" He turned the paper around, as if viewing it at a different angle might reveal something.

"Beats me," Donald shrugged.

Sora glanced away from the paper, defeated. A sudden movement drew his eyes to the courtyard gate. A small figure was standing in the fog, watching them. It must have noticed Sora staring back, because it turned and ran.

"Hey wait! Stop!" Sora yelled, chasing after it. The drawing floated to the ground behind him.

"Not again!" Donald cried, following after.

Goofy blinked in surprise. "Wait for me!" he wailed, snatching the paper and pocketing it before running after them.

The foggy street was unusually quiet as they left the hospital, retracing their steps back to the main road. Donald and Goofy tried desperately to keep pace with Sora, each glimpse of the figure inspiring a new burst of energy. As they left the town and turned up a side road, Goofy felt increasingly anxious. Finally catching up, he pulled Sora back.

"Goofy? What are you doing?" Sora frowned.

"Sora, I... I think we should turn back," Goofy panted.

Sora shifted his weight, glancing from Goofy to the road stretching back over his shoulder. He had lost sight of the figure a while back, but he knew it had to have come this way. "What? Why?" he huffed impatiently.

Goofy seemed to lose his nerve and looked down at Donald for support. Donald leaned on his cane. "Every time you see something, you go chasing after it! There's nothing out here! What if you're just seeing things?"

Sora temporarily forgot the urgency to keep running and stared down at Donald. "What are you saying? You guys think I'm crazy?"

Goofy flinched. "No, that's not--"

"I'm not seeing things and I'm not crazy! There's a girl here! I know she went this way! I saw her!" he snapped, pointing down the road.

Goofy's eyes traced Sora's gesture to a dirt road leading into a stretch of trees. The road darkened out of view as the trees grew closer and more numerous in the distance. Struck with a sense of familiarity, Goofy began searching his pockets.

Oblivious to Goofy, Donald and Sora were immersed in a spat. "Maybe you hit your head when you fell off the roof!" Donald argued.

"Maybe _you_ fried your brain when that door shocked you!" Sora countered.

"Well you're a few peanuts short of a nut case!"

"And you're a few notes short of a Silly Symphony!"

"Sora!" Goofy yelled.

"_What?_" Sora snapped.

"Look!" Goofy held out the drawing towards Sora.

Sora grabbed it out of Goofy's hands, still staring daggers at Donald. Glancing down at the wrinkled page, he held it back out towards Goofy. "Yeah, so?"

"It's a forest, see?" Goofy pointed at the scribbled patches of green and brown.

"What's your point?"

Goofy held up the drawing towards the road. Together they looked from the crude picture to the forest road.

"So... it's a drawing of this place?" Sora guessed.

Goofy nodded. "I think we're supposed to go this way!"

"Maybe I am arguing with the wrong person," Donald muttered.

"No, I think Goofy is right. She must have left it for us to find. Let's check it out."

The three set off down the road, Donald dragging his cane in the dirt behind them.

* * *

Author note: Please see my profile/bio for updates and more information about this story. Again, I am sorry about the wait but I hope it will be worth it..!


	8. Confinement

The trio was unusually silent as they ventured into this new, unfamiliar environment. Their footsteps crackled against the fallen leaves strewn along the dirt. A soft breeze whistled through the canopy, rustling the leaves in a haunting melody. It would have seemed tranquil -- beautiful, even -- if the cool breeze could reach down to the forest floor. The air was stale and musty. A layer of fog hovered above the path, undisturbed. The trees crowded uncomfortably on either side, leaning down towards them like dark pillars. Their blanched palor told of a world long deprived of sunlight.

The dim light of the forest entrance shrank out of sight behind them, and Sora flicked on the headlight once more. The beam of light brought no new information out of the surroundings. Though they kept walking, the trees around them always looked the same.

"I think we're going in circles," Sora admitted at last.

"How do you know?" Goofy asked.

"I know I've seen this tree before!" Sora said, pointing at one of the trees beside them. "See, it has this... funny shaped hole that kind of looks like the King." He traced a round knot in the trunk with two smaller knots above it.

"Hey, it kinda does," Goofy chuckled.

"It isn't funny!" Donald snapped. "We're lost!"

"We're not lost, just uh... a little turned around, that's all..." Sora looked around, turning the headlight around his neck to get a good view. The combined forces of the fog and the darkness made it nearly impossible to tell in which direction the dirt path went.

"I knew we shouldn't have come in here! This is your fault, Goofy!" Donald pointed accusingly up at Goofy.

"Me?!"

"If you hadn't pulled out that drawing we wouldn't have come in here in the first place!"

"I-I was only trying to help..." Goofy mumbled, pulling at the torn fringes of his gloves.

Sora was turning his head to butt into the argument when something flashed out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his head back around and caught the source of the distraction -- a faint glow in the distance.

"Well in the future, don't help!" Donald fumed.

"Hey Donald, cool it!" Sora frowned, rapping Donald on the head with the bottom of his fist. Donald gave a startled quack, rubbing the top of his head. "Come on, there's something over here." Sora gestured towards the faint glow in the distance.

As they drew closer to the light, a bizarre shape rose out of the fog. A tall chain-link fence stretched through the forest on either side, seemingly without end. A dim light, yellowed with age, was fixed to the top of a gate. There was a large wooden sign affixed to the gate, but most of the paint had long since peeled away. The remnants of red block letters spelt out: "ROAD CLOSED. DO NOT ENTER."

They stopped in front of the sign, and Donald crumpled in disappointment. "A dead end?" Goofy sidled over to Donald and attempted to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder.

Sora moved closer to the gate. There was a large metal box where the handle should have been. It connected the gate to the fence beside it, and one tug was enough to tell it was locked. There was no keyhole or padlock that he could see -- just a slot in the top of the box. The letters "XVI" had been imprinted into the metal.

Goofy left Donald (who was beginning to beat his cane against innocent tree trunks) to see what Sora was up to. He peered at the strange lock and the letters printed on it. "What does X V I mean?"

Sora glanced up at Goofy. "They're not letters, Goof', they're numbers. X stands for ten, V is five, and I is one. When they're really close together like that, then they're one number -- sixteen."

"Ohhh. Is that why Organization XIII has those letters instead of thirteen? X I I I?"

"Yeah," Sora sighed.

"Wowee!"

"It's great, but what do you make of this?" Sora pointed to the slot at the top of the box.

Goofy pursed his lips. "Maybe we got to put something in it."

"Like what?"

"Oh I dunno... sixteen, uh..." Goofy looked around. "Leaves?"

"Leaves? That doesn't make any sense."

"Uh... munny?" Goofy shrugged.

Sora began rummaging through his pockets. He pulled out a few small coins, some lint, and the plastic card Donald had gave him back at Brookhaven. The coins didn't fit in the slot at all. Frustrated he tried sticking the card in the slot. There was a loud thunk as the deadbolt flew back and the gate rattled open. Sora tried to pull the card out of the lock, but it was stuck inside.

"That card must have been a key!" Goofy noted.

Sora leaned away from the gate, feeling victorious. "Well, you know... trust the Keybearer to find a key." He turned towards Donald, still abusing the foliage. "Donald, knock it off! The gate's open!"

Donald paused, looking over his shoulder back at the gate. "Huh? It is?" He retreated from the trees towards them, chuckling sheepishly.

Sora smiled as Donald and Goofy passed through the gate. He was about to join them when he noticed something move by the trees. Distracted, he stared at the tree line, eyes roaming for the source of the moment.

"Sora? Come on, let's go!" Donald called.

"One sec'," Sora replied. He moved towards the trees, squinting. Sora could hear leaves rustling as something popped and snapped under the ground. He was startled by the click of his radio turning on and fizzing with static. Instinct told him to run back to the gate, where the fire axe was resting against the fence. He turned to move and nearly fell over. Looking down at his feet, he saw thick brown roots had snaked their way out of the soil, wrapping around his feet.

He watched as a mound of dirt rose through the fog in front of him. The dirt fell away and filtered through what looked like a large lump of twisting roots and vines. The creature thrashed and writhed as the vines began to form the shape of a human torso. Arms and legs burst from its body. Long, curving blades pushed their way out of its arms and fixed themselves where the hands should have been. Long poles grew out of the end of its legs in place of feet. It crouched on the ground in front of Sora, leaning on the tips of the blades and the poles like a praying mantis. The headless creature seemed to take in Sora's presence for one still moment.

Sora screamed.

Donald and Goofy snapped out of their conversation to see Sora fall back against the ground, the roots climbing up his legs. They stood in stunned shock before charging towards Sora.

"Help!" Sora screamed, clawing at the dirt. The creature scuttled around him like a spider, while the roots continued to reach up towards Sora's chest.

"We're comin', buddy!" Goofy yelled. The creature spun around at the noise, reaching one of its scythes towards Goofy. Goofy deflected the blow against his shield, and Donald leapt forward, striking his cane against its shoulder. It cried out from somewhere inside its twisting body as it stumbled. Together the two beat on the creature as it made wild swipes at them with its blades.

Meanwhile, the roots wrapped around Sora's chest and pulled him towards the ground. Sora felt pressure squeeze his ribs, choking the air out of his lungs. "The axe! Get the axe! Get..." His shouts wheezed out -- it hurt too much to breathe that deep.

Donald managed to turn his attention away long enough to hear Sora's cries. He ducked back towards the fence, where the fire axe laid waiting. Goofy continued to fight with the creature, which was trying to work its way back to its prey.

Donald ran the axe to Sora, who could barely lift his head off the ground. Panicked, Donald tried to hand the axe to Sora, who motioned frantically for Donald to strike the roots holding him to the ground.

"What if I hit you?!" Donald wailed. Sora tried to speak but could only grimace.

Frantic, Donald looked around wildly for a spot away from Sora. He swung the axe, the blade easily slicing through one of the thick roots. It thrashed and withdrew back into the ground. The victory was short-lived, as the rest of the roots clamped on tighter to Sora in response. There was a loud snap in his chest and Sora screamed in pain.

"Donald! Hurry!" Goofy cried. He was trying to pin the creature to the ground, its scythes scraping at the dirt.

Donald pinched his eyes shut, trying to block out the noise around him. He could feel the axe shaking in his hands. "I-I'm s-sorry, Sora," he cried, and began to hack at whatever he could see. Dirt, sap, and bits of root flew in every direction.

Gradually the roots retreated back into the ground. Sora threw himself back, snapping the last of the roots. He fell to his knees and gasped as air burst into his lungs. He clutched his chest, coughing.

"Th...anks... Donald..." Sora wheezed. Donald tried to smile but the effort to move his facial muscles made him feel faint.

Staggering to his feet, Sora grabbed the fire axe out of Donald's shaky hands. The feel of the hilt in his hands filled him with a spark of adrenaline. He charged towards the creature, a familiar sensation fizzling along the skin of his right arm. He swung the axe, landing a clean shot in the middle of the creature's back. The axe stuck and the creature screamed, the radio shrieking with a sharp metallic screech. Sora ripped the axe out and swung again, splitting the vines along its back. It swung at Sora with its blades, missing by a wide margin. Sora kicked at the creature's shoulder, sending it tumbling back against the ground, arms and legs flailing in the air. A searing pain ripped across his chest; one of the blades had sliced him. Stunned and enraged, his arm and chest burning, Sora swung the axe down with a fierce yell. The axe sliced through to the hole in its back, cutting the creature in half. It let out a wailing scream as the vines and roots began to fall apart, pooling harmlessly along the ground. Blood seeped out of the roots and soaked into the dirt. The radio static fizzled out.

Sora leaned against the axe a moment, panting, and crumpled against the ground. Donald and Goofy rushed over.

"Sora! Are you all-right?" Goofy cried.

Sora clutched at his chest, blood oozing between his fingertips. "No, I don't think so," he coughed. "Pretty sure... I broke a rib... among... other... things..." He fumbled through his pockets with his free hand. The supplies they salvaged from the pharmacy spilled out onto the ground.

Goofy picked up the health drink Sora had left completely unfinished and held it out.

Sora shook his head. "No way... I'm drinking that..."

"Don't be such a baby, Sora!" Donald snapped.

"I'm not... a baby!" Sora frowned, then grimaced as blood oozed onto the back of his hand.

"Drink it!" Donald yelled, bopping the side of Sora's head with the glass bottle.

"Alright already! Geez!" Sora cried, snatching the bottle out of Donald's hand and wincing. He wrestled the top off with his free hand and gave it a loathing, disgusted look before throwing his head back and gulping it down. _Hakuna matata_, he thought miserably. He finished off the rest of the bottle and immediately felt as if he was going to be sick. A sharp stinging sensation on his chest distracted him from his nausea and he looked down. The blood around the cut was steaming as the skin came back together and closed off seamlessly. "Wuh...? Ack!" There was a crackling sound in his chest; he could feel an uncomfortable pulling as the pieces of his rib came back together. Aside from a dull pain, he felt fine. "Uh... what just happened?"

Donald folded his arms. "See, told you it would make you feel better!"

"Yeah... thanks. Still tastes terrible, though," Sora said, making a face. He had a feeling the metallic aftertaste was not going away any time soon. Donald just laughed, for once too relieved to argue. "By the way, what was that thing?" Sora glanced aside at the bleeding, lifeless heap, sidling a few more inches away. Just in case it got up for round two.

"Didn't look like any Heartless I ever saw," Goofy frowned.

"It was an Angiphyte," a voice called.

Their attention snapped towards the tree line, where a petite figure appeared.

She was a girl around Sora's age, fragilely built with skinny arms and legs and a thin waist. Her build was easy to see, since very little of it was actually covered. A cut-off, sleeve-less top exposed her midriff and just barely concealed her breasts, held together by a large zipper in the front. A mini-skirt hugged her hips, slits on either side exposing her scratched, bare legs. A small leather pouch was attached to a thick belt hanging loosely off her hips. Her black pumps clearly weren't made for hiking through the woods. Her round face was accented with subtle make-up that darkened her blue eyes. Locks of short blond hair with maroon streaks drifted beside her cheeks. She clutched a rusted shovel in her thin hands as she slowly approached them.

Donald and Goofy instinctively shifted in to defensive positions. "Who are you?" Donald asked.

"I'm sorry to butt in," she said. "But I heard your voices... I thought you were all monsters at first so I didn't say anything."

Sora stared at the girl incredulously. "Kairi, is that you?"

She blinked at him, perplexed. "What?"

"Kairi, it's me! Sora! Don't you remember me?" He stepped towards her.

"Huh? Who are you talking about?" she said.

"But... aren't you that girl I saw? At Brookhaven? Why did you run away?"

"I don't know what you're talking abou-- stay away from me!" She held out the pointed end of the shovel towards Sora, stopping him.

"Kairi?!" Sora held up his hands, confused.

"Look, I don't know who this Kairi chick is, but I'm not your girlfriend, alright? My name's Akiri."

Sora dropped his hands, looking defeated. "Oh... sorry, it's just... you look a lot like her." He glanced from her legs up to her chest and quickly looked away. "Just, you know... a little older."

She chuckled, noticing the tinge of red in his face. "So, you're Sora, huh? Who are Feather Brain and Dog Face over here? Nice costumes, by the way." She nodded at Donald and Goofy.

Donald frowned. "My name's not Feather Brain, it's Donald Duck! And this is Goofy!" he said, pointing at Goofy.

"Donald and Goofy, huh? Those are dorky names. Kind of cute, though," she smirked.

Sora gulped. "So, you said that thing was an Angiphyte, right? How do you know that?"

"I've run into those before," she replied, toeing the pile of dead vines on the ground. "They crush their victims in roots and suck out their blood. Kinda like spiders."

"Yeah, I uh... sort of noticed." Sora paled at the memory of being slowly crushed against the dirt. "Sorry, we just haven't seen many other people here, so..."

"So what? You think I might be a monster?" She grinned, stepping closer to Sora. "Well if it helps, I'll give you a good will present." To Sora's chagrin, she pulled another keycard from inside her top and handed it to him.

The card featured another crude drawing, this time of a naked woman with long red hair. She was standing on top of some blue and green squiggles that Sora assumed were supposed to be water and grass. A big yellow squiggle was drawn above her head in the shape of a star. Yet more holes were punched on the bottom of the card.

"I found that in the woods, before I got lost," she explained. "Thought you might get more use out of that than me."

"Y-yeah, thanks," Sora said, pocketing the card.

"So?"

Sora blinked. "So... what?"

"So are we going or are we just gonna stand around here all day?"

Donald recoiled. "Wuh... you're coming with us?"

She glanced at Donald and rolled her eyes. "Of course! What, you're gonna leave me out here alone?"

Sora shook his head. "N-no, but..."

"Well then let's go!" she cried, tugging on his hand. She pulled him towards the gate.

Donald and Goofy hung behind for a moment, watching them. "I don't like her," Donald scowled.


	9. A Million Miles

They had barely stepped through the gate when they ran into a wall. Sora jumped up and down trying to see over the ivy-covered obstruction with no luck. The wall stretched and curved away into the darkness on either side of them. A faint glow to the right beckoned them towards it. Their steps tapped and crackled against the debris of dead leaves strewn across the flagstones beneath their feet.

The glow came from a lamp on the wall beside a wrought iron gate. It was locked with a similar device to the first gate, the letters "XVII" imprinted into the metal. Sora pulled out the keycard Akiri gave him and placed it inside the lock. It clicked and the door swung open.

The walls here changed to thick hedges. Withering white roses were nestled in the leaves, dropping a snow of browning petals along the grass. The hedges branched into an array of corridors and dead-end corners.

"It's like a maze," Sora groaned after turning into another dead end.

"Maybe you should make a map?" Goofy suggested.

Sora blinked. "Oh, yeah! I keep forgetting Jiminy isn't around... if you want something done right you gotta do it yourself!" Sora began to rummage for his pockets for the red crayon and a piece of paper.

"Your map is just gonna get us more lost," Donald sighed.

"Hey, my maps are great!" Sora retorted. He pulled out the map of Silent Hill and flipped it over. On the back corner was an extremely messy drawing of a bunch of red squiggles and lines. "Forest" was written in the top corner in a very childish scrawl.

There was a sharp scream followed by a loud THUNK. Startled, Sora had to scramble to grab the map as it floated out of his hands.

"That sounded like Akiri!" Goofy gasped.

"Where did she go?" Donald asked, squinting into the darkness around them.

Sora swiveled the light around his neck. "I thought she was right here!"

They ran back the way they came and around the corner. Akiri was standing over a Nightmare Shadow, clutching the shovel. The body of the Shadow twitched as blood streamed onto the grass.

"Akiri! Are you alright?" Sora cried, running up.

Akiri jumped at the sound of Sora's voice. Her shoulders relaxed as they came closer. "I look alright, don't I?"

Sora looked her up and down. Except for some blood spatter on her legs, she was unharmed. "Y-yeah, you do." He looked away, blushing. "Why'd you wander off? It's too dark to see anything." Sora kneeled by the body. Looking closer, he noticed the Heartless was lying on a pile of hundreds of bloodstained playing cards. _Weird, I wonder who left all these here? _He thought, picking up a joker card. A deranged artwork of a pink rabbit in overalls adorned the front.

Akiri leaned down and picked up something shiny lying in the grass. "I was fine; I have this." She held up the object: a lighter. She flicked the top and a small flame burst to life. "Besides, I found this while you guys were chatting over there." She put the lighter into the small pouch on her belt and tossed a small plastic card at Sora.

Sora caught the card and turned it over. A crayon drawing of two strange creatures -- one black and one white -- pulled a wheeled cart. Inside was the figure of a man holding a large knife. His face was scratched out. Seven holes had been punched along the bottom of the card.

Donald and Goofy peered over Sora's shoulder at the illustration on the card. "How many of these things are there?" Donald thought aloud.

"I don't know, but if there's a key, there has to be a door, right?" Sora pocketed the card. He hesitated and began to scoop up all the playing cards scattered on the ground as well.

"What are you doing? We don't need those," Akiri said, reaching to knock the stack of cards out of Sora's hands.

Sora held the stack out of her reach. "I'm gonna use them to mark where we've been!" he retorted defensively. "My, uh... the map hasn't been very helpful." He fiddled with the buckle on his side pocket.

"Good idea, Sora!" Goofy said with an approving nod.

Akiri smirked. "What, you mean there's something in there besides all that spiky hair?"

Donald grinned widely at Goofy and Akiri. "I knew his map wouldn't help!"

Sora scowled.

--

They moved through a different route in the maze, Sora leaving behind a card at a time to mark their progress. They crossed another gate with the numerals "VIII", but to their mutual dismay, the keycard didn't match.

At the end of a long corridor they found another unusual scene. The blooming roses in the hedges were dyed a deep crimson. A bucket full of dark liquid sat forgotten on the ground. Above it words had been painted on the leaves in a very shaky hand: "WE'RE ALL MAD HERE". The paint glistened as if it had been freshly applied.

No sooner had Sora finished reading than the hedge began to shift and mutate, inspiring a sharp hiss from the radio. Long, curved blades sliced out towards them as an Angiphyte pushed its way out of the hedge. Sora felt his heart leap as he made a wild swipe at the creature with the fire axe. The axe sliced clean through its arm, the blade falling harmlessly to the ground. It clanged against the bucket, spilling its contents onto the grass. Howling with pain, the Angiphyte made another swipe at Sora. Sora dodged and swung down with all his might. The axe stuck between the creature's shoulders and the vines began to split down the center with a loud, repetitive snap. Shrieking, the remains of the Angiphyte retreated into the hedge, the radio static fading with it.

"Let's get out of here before that thing comes back!" Akiri cried, grabbing Sora's wrist.

"I-I'm with her!" Goofy agreed, clutching the trash can lid to his chest.

Donald was attempting to shake off some of the strange paint spilt on his feet, muttering a torrent of disgust. Lifting his foot, he noticed a small white object lying on the grass. He wiped it off on his jacket and held it to the light -- it was another keycard. "Sora! I found another one!"

Sora's attention was so preoccupied with Akiri's fingers around his wrist that he almost did not hear Donald. "W-what? Let me see!" Donald held up the keycard to Sora proudly. A colorful drawing of a man in blue robes holding up a wand adorned the card. At the bottom of the card was a single hole.

Sora frowned in disappointment. "It doesn't match the door we found... we need one with eight holes."

Donald blinked. "How do you--"

"We'll keep looking, just not here," Akiri said pointedly, practically dragging a flustered Sora away.

Donald shoved the keycard in his pocket, muttering.

--

They took a different path into yet another confusion of alleyways and blocked passages. At the end of a long hall they found the remains of a table and chairs, their legs torn away and their surfaces hewn. Bits of brightly colored paper, shards of china, and patches of a checkered tablecloth were scattered around the ruins. Two Nightmare Dusks were clambering over the wreckage, fighting over a silk top hat. The greedy Dusks were quickly vanquished before they knew what hit them.

Sora kicked the bodies of the Dusks aside, looking around. Akiri was sifting through the china, holding up the handle of a teacup. "Is it just me, or does this place feel a lot like Wonderland?" Sora thought aloud.

Goofy pursed his lips. "Gosh, now that you mention it..."

Akiri looked up in confusion. "What's Wonderland?"

Donald and Goofy stared at Sora. Sora grinned nervously back. "Uhh, nothing!"

Akiri narrowed her eyes. "If it's where you guys are from, I'm not surprised."

Donald looked away and noticed the top hat still sitting where the Dusks had left it. He picked it up and turned it around, peeking inside. "What's so special about this thing?" He was about to toss it when Goofy pulled something out of the band around the hat -- another keycard. A drawing of a girl with a lion was scribbled on the front of the card, and eight holes were punched on the bottom.

"Hey, that's it!" Sora exclaimed, snatching the card away from Goofy.

--

They followed the long, twisting route of scattered playing cards back to the locked gate. The bars of the gate were spindly and bone in color. The lock accepted the new keycard and the gate yawned open. They stepped through cautiously into a long horizontal hallway. Warm, humid air washed over them. To Akiri's horror, the ground here was soft and moist, squelching and popping with each step. She threw herself against the wall with a shriek only to find the same texture on the wall, sliming what little clothing she had on.

"Eugh! What is this?!" Akiri cried, frantically clawing the ooze off her bare midriff.

"My feet!" Donald wailed, trying to shake off the sludge in vain. He gave up with a long sigh and wished, for once, that he bothered to wear shoes.

Goofy was squishing circles around them, chuckling.

Sora turned the headlight at the walls and floor, but the surface was so dense the light disappeared. All he could see was a dark mixture of purple and red. The shine on the walls glinted, as if the walls were expanding and contracting slightly. "I have no idea what it is but it's gonna make me lose my lunch," Sora gulped, covering his mouth. Whatever the walls and floor were made of, they emitted a dull stench of rotting flesh. He pulled off his jacket. "Here!" He tossed it to Akiri. She caught it just before it hit the ground.

"What a gentleman," Akiri snickered, pulling it on.

"Let's look around and get out of here!" Donald whined.

The area itself consisted of only a few hallways and corners. At the end they found a dead-end corridor littered with the decomposing corpses of Nightmare Shadows, clawing out of a pool of some tainted green substance. At the back of the pool, a set of bars like claws reached out from the wall. Inside the small cage was the shine of another keycard. Fighting the urge to run screaming from the stench alone, Sora tried dropping one of the playing cards into the pool. It was gone before he could blink, leaving behind a spot of melted plastic.

"How are we gonna get over there?" Donald asked, looking for a foothold or stepping stone amidst the muck.

"If I still had my magic, I could probably jump it, but..." Sora held out his hand in a hopeless gesture.

Akiri had her hands clamped firmly over her mouth. "Oo kin figoor dis ou' wi-ou' me, I'm nah gon neer dah," she mumbled from behind her hands.

Goofy poked at the pool of sludge with his toe. The tip of his shoe hissed, emitting a strong odor of burnt rubber. "Maybe I can get over there," Goofy suggested.

"What?! That's crazy!" Donald cried.

"Yeah, that stuff'll turn you into a big gooey mess before you even get across," Sora added.

Goofy frowned. "Well someone's got to try!" He tugged his goggles off of his hat and onto his eyes and faced the pool. Sora, Donald, and Akiri looked on with trepidation as Goofy made a tentative step into the pool. The sludge was just shallow enough that it did not reach past the soles of his shoes. Goofy crossed the pool in several long strides, wincing as droplets spattered off his shoes onto his bare ankles. He squeezed his hand through the bars and grabbed the keycard.

"Got it!" Goofy shouted triumphantly. No sooner had the words left his mouth than the floor beneath their feet shook, and more acid began to pour out from behind the bars. "Yoooooww!" Goofy cried, ripping his hand out of the cage. The keycard was clutched protectively in his fist, but the acid was starting to burn through his gloves and blister the back of his hand. More of the muck was surging out under his feet, burning through the soles of his shoes. The corpses of the Nightmare Shadows sunk further as they disintegrated.

Akiri leapt away as the sludge began to lap at their toes. Donald jumped up and down on the spot anxiously. "Goofy! Run!" Donald yelled.

Goofy did not need to be told twice. He made a break for the shore, using the disappearing Shadow bodies as stepping-stones. Even still, acid sloshed around his legs, singeing the bottom of his pants. He made a flying leap out of the pool straight towards Sora and Donald. The three went tumbling into the wall.

Akiri watched in horror as the acid began to ooze out of the walls around them. The walls were expanding around them, threatening to trap them inside. "We got to get out of here quick!" she screamed, pulling a dazed Sora to his feet.

Together the four ran back towards the gate, a wave of acid rushing after them and the walls closing in. They dodged their way back through the maze of hedges and playing cards, back to the second gate, back to the long, circular corridor of flagstones. The four collapsed under the quiet glow of the lamp, panting.

Sora glanced from Goofy, his clothing covered in small burn holes -- to Donald, sprawled out on the ground taking deep, raspy breaths -- to Akiri, inspecting her high heels with a forlorn frown. His face cracked into a wide grin and he stifled a snort.

Donald turned his head to shoot Sora a disapproving glare. "What?"

Sora exploded with laughter, thumping the ground with his fist. His chest burned from the run and he could not breathe for laughing, but he could not stop. Donald and Akiri stared at Sora, then at one another. Goofy, who always found laughter to be infectious, started to chuckle.

"He's cracked," Donald mumbled, leaning on his hands.

"Does he do this often?" Akiri asked, raising a brow.

"G-Goofy," Sora wheezed, trying to breathe between laughs. "Let -- me -- see the card!" He clutched his chest with one hand and held out the other.

Goofy uncurled his fingers to reveal the keycard. He passed it over to Sora, who held it up to the light. The crayon illustration on the front of the card showed a roughly drawn figure hanging upside-down from a tree. Twelve holes were punched along the bottom.

"Where do all these cards go to?" Donald muttered, pulling the card he found out of his pocket.

Akiri glanced over at Sora, smirking. "Well whenever Chuckles is done, we can keep going. There are probably more gates around here."

Sora was starting to wind down and catch his breath. He wiped tears out of his eyes the best he could with his dirty hands. "Y-yeah," Sora coughed. "Sorry, I was just..." He cleared his throat loudly. "Yeah. Let's keep going."

--

Akiri was right -- there were more gates. Three, to be precise; two of which they had keycards for. The last was locked, and then they were back where they had started. It was a long walk around the entire hallway, and Sora could only reason that the area inside was enormous, way beyond what could possibly fit on the map. Distantly he wondered why something this big wasn't on the map of Silent Hill.

They regrouped back in front of the first gate to figure out where to go from here. "It's going to take us forever to get through all these gates," Donald moaned. "There could be dozens of them."

"Yeah, and we don't know which gate to start with," Goofy added.

"Why don't we split up, then?" Akiri suggested. Sora, Donald and Goofy stared at her as if her hair had suddenly turned into snakes. She blinked back. "What? It's the best solution, isn't it? Sora and I take one of the gates, and Donald and Goofy take the other. We each work together to get to the middle of the labyrinth."

"Labyrinth?" Goofy repeated.

"It's a big maze that goes towards a center," Akiri explained. "This whole place must be a big circle with a maze inside. There's only one way to get the center, but the gates are keeping us from getting to it."

Sora frowned, trying to keep up with Akiri's train of thought. "So we gotta get through all the gates to find the right path?"

"Exactly."

Sora scratched his head. "I don't know... split up? What are Donald and Goofy going to do? They don't have a flashlight."

Akiri pulled out her lighter and tossed it to Donald. "When you find something you can use as a torch, use this."

Goofy looked from the lighter to Akiri. "But we can't leave Sora! The King... we're supposed to stick together!"

Donald stamped his foot. "Yeah! We're pals!"

Akiri set her hands on her hips. "Well if you're Sora's friends then you'll help him out!"

"You're just trying to separate us!" Donald retorted.

"Am not!"

Donald was hopping with rage. "We're staying with Sora! You can't split us up, you -- you -- you --"

"Donald! That's enough!" Sora cried. Donald and Goofy looked at Sora in shock. Sora sighed. "I... I think Akiri is right, it's best if we split up."

"But... Sora!" Goofy complained. "What if something happens?"

Sora smiled. "We'll be okay! Trust me! We're going to meet up again, right? So don't worry!"

"Yeah, but..."

Donald scowled. "Come on, Goofy, let's go! They don't need us!" He grabbed Goofy's sleeve and began to pull him away.

Goofy gaped down at Donald. "But...!" He looked back at Sora uneasily as he and Donald walked away into the dark.

Sora stood watching them go, his smile fading. He let out a long sigh.

Akiri glanced at him. "What?"

Sora struggled with what to say. "It's just... we haven't been split up in a long time."

"So? Wasn't there a time when you didn't even know them?"

Sora thought back before Silent Hill -- before all their recent adventures -- before they closed the door to Kingdom Hearts -- back, back, back. It felt like so long ago that he had first ran into Donald and Goofy in Traverse Town, when they decided to be a team. He knew more time had passed than he could even remember; he still felt like there was a huge gap in his memory, before he woke up floating in some strange device, a year older. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't picture anything in this gap except a few snatches of white hallways and a face-less woman with yellow hair. Whatever happened, when he woke up, Donald and Goofy were right there with him. As much as he wanted to see Kairi and Riku again and return to Destiny Islands, he knew Donald and Goofy had become close friends as well.

The thought struck him that if he did go back to the islands again, everything would go back to the way it was before. Donald and Goofy would go back home with King Mickey, and he might not see them again. Sora felt a strong pain in his chest.

"Sora? Helloooo?" Akiri whistled, waving her hand in front of his face.

Sora jumped. "Huh? Oh... sorry."

"Are we going to get a move on or what?"

Sora nodded.


	10. Dance With Night Wind

On the other side of the labyrinth was a brass gate with the numerals "VII". The lock accepted the matching keycard, and Sora and Akiri stepped inside. The ground was covered in sand, and the walls were built of an old, crumbling stone. Enormous Grecian columns stood in various stages of decay, creating a network of alleyways and dead-end paths with their ruins. The two explored the area in awkward silence, Sora occasionally marking arrows on the walls with his crayon.

Sora did not think of himself as being shy at all. He loved being with and talking to people, and was indiscriminate with his company for the most part. He even liked being around girls when most boys his age thought they carried some sort of disease. Growing up with Kairi, Sora had come to appreciate the differences between boys and girls while enjoying the similarities. Kairi might not understand the rivalry between Sora and Riku, but she understood how to laugh and have fun -- and to Sora, that was all that mattered. Getting older seemed to bring in a lot of complications that Sora could not understand. Sora played along with Riku's jokes (they were jokes, weren't they?) about who would get to be with Kairi -- but he thought it was just part of their rivalry. Was Riku serious about being Kairi's boyfriend? What would change if that happened? Sora thought of Riku and Kairi as his best friends and hoped they would always be together. If Kairi and Riku dated, he might just be a third wheel or – even worse – forgotten about altogether. If he and Kairi dated… thinking of Kairi as more than a friend was confusing at best, embarrassing at worst.

The unfamiliar presence of Akiri brought up all the old confusion Sora had tried his best to forget. On the surface she seemed to be so similar to Kairi, but one word out of her mouth was enough to convince Sora that they could not be the same person. Akiri was bold, confident, and startlingly feminine. She was playful like Kairi, but in a way that made Sora feel nervous.

Sora pulled his axe out of the skull of a Nightmare Dusk and sat back against a wall, catching his breath. Across the way, Akiri climbed up the side of a short wall, trying to get a look from up top. Sora found himself unconsciously staring at her legs beneath her miniskirt as she hauled herself up on top of the wall.

"I can see another gate north of us," she called back to him, pointing. "But it's too dark to see anything else." Not getting an answer, she looked back and caught Sora looking away the moment their eyes met. She smirked and pushed herself off the edge, landing beside the body of the Dusk.

"So?"

Sora blinked and looked up. Akiri was leaning on her knees in front of him, blue eyes glittering in the beam of the headlight. If he looked down he could almost see down her shirt... his eyes snapped up to hers. "So… what?"

"So are you going to tell me about your girlfriend?"

"W-what girlfriend?"

"You know... what was it... Kaori? Kiri? Kiria?"

"Kairi."

Akiri stood up straight. "Yeah, Kairi! Tell me about her."

"S-she's not my girlfriend." Sora got up, dragging the fire axe behind him. They walked back the way they came, looking for a path that would lead north.

"Suuuuurrre. So? Is she cute?"

"Yeah, I guess so..."

She raised a brow. "You guess? So she's ugly?"

"No! She's cute!"

Akiri giggled. "If you think she's so cute then why isn't she your girlfriend?"

Sora swung around a column and started on a different path. "Because... she's my friend!"

"So what? Your friend can't be your girlfriend?"

Sora glared at her. "You know, you're really nosey."

Akiri laughed and pulled on Sora's arm. "Come on! Does she like you? Like, _like you_ like you?"

Sora tried to pull his arm away but Akiri held on tight. "I don't know... I haven't seen her in a while. I don't... I don't even know what she's like now," he muttered.

"What happened? Did you guys have a fight?"

Sora thought back to Kingdom Hearts, to Kairi's hand slipping out of his own as they were pulled away, and the promise he had made. "No, we just... got separated. Now I don't know where she is. Organization... these bad guys took her."

Akiri glanced at the sudden mixture of melancholy and hatred on Sora's face. Her smile faded and she pulled him closer. "Bad guys? Who?" Sora stared down at the ground and didn't respond. "Sora?"

"I'm going to get her back," Sora mumbled.

Akiri frowned. She pulled at his cheek so they were facing one another. Slowly his eyes drifted to hers. "You have me, right? I promise no bad guys are going to get me. I'm a tough girl," she whispered. "So no more pouting, okay?" She patted his chest. "Come on, let's keep going."

--

Altogether, after thoroughly searching the area, they found three more gates and another keycard. Neither of the cards they had matched any of the gates, so they found themselves back in the long circular hallway. After walking a while they came to an unfamiliar open gate.

"This must be where Goofy and Donald went," Sora noted, stepping inside. It was another sandy area, with towering adobe walls. Shards of pottery and broken crates were stacked in corners, and scraps of intricately patterned drapes stretched across the walls. "I wonder if they're still here?" he added with a bit of hope.

It did not take them long to thoroughly explore the tiny area, and except for the battered corpse of a Nightmare Shadow, there was no evidence that anyone was around. They came to an archway with a wooden gate, the numerals "XVIII" carved above the lock. Sora gave the gate a half-hearted kick.

"Sora, those numbers match the card we just got," Akiri remarked pointedly.

"Huh? Oh! Right..." Sora fumbled the keycard out of his pockets -- glancing at the crayon illustration of wolves howling at the moon -- and placed it in the lock. The door creaked open.

They stepped into a cramped area overgrown with foliage. Trees huddled around them, their branches stretching up above. Dead leaves amassed on the ground, forming a jagged path around the trees. The air was musty with decay and suffocatingly heavy. The faint echoes of a child's laughter drifted through the trees.

"What's that?" Akiri whispered. "Are your friends in here?"

Sora peered into the trees. "Can't be, the door was locked..." He moved forward, sloughing into the river of leaves. He glanced back at Akiri, who hovered anxiously by the doorway. "Aren't you coming?"

"I... I think I'll wait outside. I can't breathe in here," she answered.

Sora hesitated. "Okay... don't move, I'll be right back."

"_Hurry!_"

Sora waded through the leaves, turning a corner. In the heavy silence he could swear he heard the whispers of voices and laughter around him. _I'm just imagining things,_ he thought. _There's no one here but Akiri and me. _

In a corner where the path looped around, a wide tree stump rose out of the leaves. Wads of paper were scattered all around the stump; the few pieces that were not crumpled were filled with dark scribbles. The beam from Sora's headlight rested on a dark humanoid shape perched on the stump, humming a tune to itself. It looked up when the light settled on it and darted away.

"Hey, stop!" Sora shouted, running after it. Whatever it was had disappeared into the darkness of the trees. Sora strained to hear the telltale sounds of footsteps in the undergrowth, but it was silent again. Sora dropped down onto the stump in frustration. The tune the strange figment had been humming drifted in and out of his mind. Without realizing it, he began to hum along.

"_Sora?_" a voice whispered nearby.

Sora leaned back against the stump and sighed. "Akiri? I thought you were going to stay by the door."

"_Sora, where are you?_"

He pushed himself back up. "I'm right he--" he froze, staring at the trees.

A boy hovered near the tree line, just out of the light. His clothing was dark and torn, and his long hair was matted and gray. Cold, dead eyes gazed back at Sora from a shadowy face.

Sora blinked in surprise. "Ri--"

"_You lied to me_," the boy muttered, cutting Sora off.

"What?"

"_You promised me._"

Sora leaned forward, trying to get a better look. "Huh? I don't know what you're..."

"_You said you'd take care of her and you lied. You forgot all about her._"

"I didn't... Kairi? Is it Kairi you're talking about? No! I haven't--"

"_It's too late._"

Sora stood up. "No, I'm trying to save her! You have to help me! Do you know where she is?"

"_It's too late,_" the voice repeated, and the figure disappeared into the shadows.

Sora leapt after it. "Wait!" He had barely gotten near the spot the boy had been when an Angiphyte leapt out of the trees, knocking him over. The pile of leaves and crumpled up paper cushioned his fall, and he rolled to the side as the Angiphyte made a swipe at him. Sora scooped up the fire axe where it lay against the stump and scrambled to his feet. The creature scuttled aside, reorienting itself. They regarded one another for a moment, static hissing from the radio. The Angiphyte leapt towards Sora at the same moment he swung the axe. The blade caught the creature in the neck, slamming it down against the tree trunk. It squirmed, trying to push itself off of the trunk. Sora darted around and stomped on the creature's back. There was a loud snap and it laid still, blades twitching. The static died out.

Sora panted and sunk to his knees, staring at the trees. He pushed himself away from the stump and swayed towards the tree line. Nestled amidst the leaves was another keycard, the plastic shining in the light. An illustration of a man being chased by a dog adorned the front of the card. Sora noted with some bewilderment there were no holes on the bottom of the card. Nevertheless, he pocketed it. He ripped the axe out of the stump and began to wander back the way he came. The leaves felt much heavier on his feet than they had before.

--

Akiri was huddled against the archway, staring into space. She looked up at Sora as he approached, squinting at the light. She took in the fresh blood on his shirt. "What happened?"

Sora snapped out his own thoughts to regard Akiri. "Huh? Oh... nothing. I found another keycard."

"That's it?" Akiri rose to her feet, stretching, brushing dirt and debris off the back of her skirt. "There wasn't anyone in there?"

Sora shook his head. "No... musta been imagining things." He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand, trying to recompose himself and give her a reassuring smile.

Akiri shot him a questioning look. "Really? I thought... well, never-mind, let's just go. This place gives me the creeps." She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the archway.

Sora followed her, glancing at their hands locked together as they walked.

--

The search for a matching gate led them back to the area of stone columns. Sora's newly found card matched a wooden door with the number "0" engraved elegantly on the lock. The door unlocked and opened with a shudder into a curving hallway. Sora and Akiri stepped inside, their shoes tapping against the wood planks beneath their feet, warped from age and moisture. Wood paneling stretched along the walls, broken intermittently by splintering beams that held up nothing but air. The strong stench of mold emanated from the wood around them.

"Who d'you think built all this?" Akiri thought aloud, studying the worn, curving patterns in the wainscoting.

"No clue," Sora shrugged. They turned a corner into a small alcove. A broken lantern sat atop a nightstand. Its drawer had been ripped out and thrown against the opposite wall, strewing a mess of papers. Words had long since faded off the yellowing papers, but fresh crayon scribbles marked every page. In the back of the alcove, a small chest sat, a rusted padlock clamping it shut. A strong swing from the fire axe was more than enough to splinter the wooden chest along the lock and open it. Sora kneeled to look inside.

"Ohh, let me see! What's in it?" Akiri squealed, practically hopping to get a good look.

The chest was filled to the brim with photographs. They were all scratched and warped beyond recognition, and Sora's curious excitement faded to frustration as he waded through them.

Akiri picked up some of the photographs, turning them this way and that trying to make sense of them. "Who would want to lock up a bunch of wrecked photos?" she muttered, tossing them aside.

At the bottom of the chest Sora found another keycard, this time featuring a rough drawing of a sun shining down on a small figure. Nineteen tiny holes crowded the bottom of the card.

"Oh goody. Another one," Akiri remarked, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Sure there's nothing useful in there? Like a ticket out of here?"

Sora leaned away from the chest, pocketing the card. "We gotta be closer to the end, right?" he replied with a stab at optimism. "I mean, how many of these could there be?"

--

Around a corner they found a large wrought iron gate inside a brick wall, the numerals "XII" embedded into the metal lock. Sora dug in his pocket for the card Goofy had recovered and placed it inside the lock. With a loud creak, the gate opened towards them, and they stepped inside.

They were standing inside what looked like a small courtyard. The linoleum that once covered the floor had been ripped away in places, and debris was strewn everywhere. Two long display cases stood in the center of the room, the glass shattered and their valuables missing. Marble statues in the corners had been smashed beyond recognition. The walls surrounding the courtyard were covered in maroon wallpaper, barely clinging in tattered threads to the walls. The walls stretched up but ended abruptly, as if the roof had been torn away. A large staircase to the side lead up to nowhere and looked ready to collapse. Empty doorframes opened into hallways on either side, and they chose one at random and started walking.

A few old paintings still hung in the halls, so ruined from exposure to the elements that their contents were beyond recognition. Drawings were tacked up beside some of the paintings. Most of them were too vague to make out, though Akiri could tell they were meant to be environments. One of the drawings showed stairs spiraling up out of the boundaries of the paper. Another was of a long white hall with columns on either side. Akiri glanced at Sora, who was not giving the drawings much thought.

Sora felt the uncomfortable prickle of staring eyes, and glanced to his side to see Akiri staring back. "What? Is there something on my face?"

"Sora, something's been bothering me," Akiri said. "I keep seeing these drawings everywhere we go, thrown around, pinned up... even on the keycards. And all these different mazes... you recognize them, don't you? You and your friends were saying something back there about it."

Sora scratched the back of his head, trying to think of how to answer. "Well, yeah... some of these areas look kind of familiar, like places I've been to before... but they're kind of different. It's not really the same."

"You're not from around here, are you?"

"Uh..." Sora hesitated. "Well, my friends and I were actually traveling somewhere else, and we crashed back in town... we've been trying to find a way to get out so we can keep going. And I'm kind of looking for some friends of mine. Why, are you from around here?"

Akiri crossed her arms behind her back. "I'm actually from the next town over, Shepherd's Glen. I grew up there, and I was sick of it... nothing ever changed. So I ran away, and I ended up here. Pretty crazy, huh? That we ran into each other?" She smiled.

"Yeah... crazy," he chuckled nervously. "But wherever you came from has got to be better than this, right? Why'd you want to come here?"

Akiri pursed her lips and tapped her shovel against the floor. "People back home have been disappearing lately... I figured they were all like me, desperate to get out of that town. I used to hear people talk about some sort of crazy cult in Silent Hill and some old curse or something, but I thought that was just a bunch of ghost stories my mom told me to scare me out of wandering off." She glanced at Sora and shrugged. "Well, I wanted to see for myself, you know? I'm not scared of a bunch of ghosts, are you?"

Sora blinked at her and looked away. "No way!" he huffed. "What's there to be scared of?" It sounded all right in his head, but the words rang hollow once they left his mouth.

--

Navigating a confusing mess of locked doors and narrow halls, they eventually found themselves inside a small white room. At least, Sora assumed it was white -- almost every visible space was covered in sheets of paper. They crammed the walls and littered the floor, creating a sea of colorful drawings. Sora and Akiri stood and stared as they tried to take in the visual overload. Sora stepped towards a wall to get a better look.

Many of the drawings featured what looked like stylized versions of people he knew. There were drawings of Donald and Goofy, and many of the others he had met during his travels. There were a number of drawings of people in black cloaks, which made Sora frown. He stepped away towards the middle of the room, where a large table stood above the tide of paper. The tabletop was similarly disarrayed, drawings covering the entire surface, with dozens of small crayons on top of them. Sora pushed some of the drawings aside. Most of them were of a boy with blonde hair -- skateboarding, playing with other children, eating ice cream. Sora glanced away to see a number of similar drawings of him -- holding the Keyblade, defeating Heartless. Some of them showed him as a young boy in situations he never remembered happening, accompanied by a little girl with blonde hair. He pushed aside some of the drawings and stepped back in surprise; a particularly large drawing of himself had been covered in black crayon, with yellow splotches over the eyes. Looking at the drawing made him feel uneasy, and he unconsciously rubbed his arm.

Nearby, Akiri was staring at another drawing. "Sora, look at this," she said, holding out the paper and tapping it against his hand. Sora startled out of his trance and turned the paper around so he could see it.

A girl with long blonde hair sat crying alone on a chair. No matter how long he stared at it, he didn't recognize the girl in the picture beyond a lingering sense of familiarity. Looking at it made him feel a crushing sense of loneliness. He quickly looked away.

"I found this taped to the back," Akiri continued, holding out a keycard.

A large circle was drawn in red, runes scribbled along the inside edge. Inside was another circle with three smaller circles inset, and a few symbols too scribbled to make out. Looking at it sparked a dull ache in his head. Ten holes were punched along the bottom of the card. Sora took the keycard and stuffed it in his pocket, eager to get the symbol out of his mind.

Akiri took one last look around the room. "There are so many... who drew all of these?"

"I wish I knew," Sora replied, stepping back towards the door. Akiri followed reluctantly.

"Whoever they were, they must have been alone for a long time," she sighed.

"Why do you think that?"

"When you're alone, your imagination is your only friend."


	11. Block Mind Magdalene

Back in the long circular hallway, they found one more locked gate. Inside was a jagged, narrow hallway. The floor sunk a foot below ground level, and it was flooded with foul-smelling septic water. The walls were damp and covered in algae. Sora and Akiri pinched their noses as they hurried down the hall, eager to find the end of this area.

Luckily it was not long before they came to another gate at the end of a long corridor. A brass double-gate was set inside two white pillars, the numeral "X" scrawled on the lock. Sora pulled out the last keycard and put it in the lock, hearing the familiar click as the gates creaked open. Sora and Akiri stepped inside a small space, a corridor leading away on their right. Large slate blue flagstones paved the floor, sticking up at odd angles where the ground shifted. The dark stone walls were almost indiscernible under thick layers of brass pipelines and tubing. They cascaded down and crisscrossed over one another in a dizzying mess. All around them was the trickle of water and the hiss of steam as it escaped from rusted bolts.

"This is it, right?" Akiri said, shaking his arm. "That was our last keycard! We're almost out of here!"

Sora stood look around. "Yeah, but..."

"But what?"

"I thought Donald and Goofy would be here by now. Do you think they're okay?"

"Oh… I'm sure they're just fine. They're probably right behind us."

"Maybe we should wait for them," Sora suggested, looking for a place to sit. Akiri pulled him back.

"No! Please... we've come this far... I'm so tired," Akiri pleaded, holding tighter to his arm. "I just want to get out of here. You and me. We don't need them. We've done alright just the two of us. Right?"

Sora blinked at her. "But... Akiri... I can't leave my friends!"

"Why not?" she muttered. "They left you, didn't they? Don't you remember? Alone and defenseless... they ditched you the moment someone better came along."

For a moment Sora saw a flash of him on his knees, staring down at a battered wooden sword. So much time had passed since then, that moment alone in Hollow Bastion had almost faded out of his memory. _But I never told her about that, _he thought, bewildered. "How did you...?"

"Why are you trying so hard to find them, Sora?" she continued, ignoring him. "He alienated and humiliated you, and now he avoids you. And her... she went on with her life and forgot all about you, and only when she remembered did she feel like easing her guilty conscience," she spat.

Sora tried to step away, alarmed by the sudden fire in Akiri's eyes. "Riku... that's not... how could you know... _Kairi wouldn't forget about me! _"

Akiri laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "Hah! Oh, Sora, that's what I like about you... so naïve." She reached out to touch his hair and he ducked out of the way. "Even if you do get your little friends back together again, what do you think will happen? If Riku and Kairi decide they like each other more than they like you, where does that leave you?"

Sora pulled his arm out of her grasp, backing up. "Stop it! You don't even know them!"

"I know just what they're like!" she cried, rapping the shovel against the ground. "They'll drop you like dirt once they have each other! They won't need you around anymore! You'll be alone again! You'll have no one!"

Sora felt tears sting his eyes. "Akiri..."

Akiri took a deep breath, letting her shoulders relax. "Sora," she said, voice softer. "You don't have to go through this... I'm here... it could be you and me, together." Backed against the wall, Sora could only watch as Akiri slowly moved closer. "I'll never hurt you, or leave you, or forget about you. I'll never run away or disappear. I'll be yours, forever." She was so close now that Sora could hear her breathing. She brushed her fingertips against his arm. "What do you say?" she whispered.

Sora shut his eyes, feeling his heart pounding against his chest. Her words were sinking into him like needles, crawling inside his mind and ripping apart the threads holding together his thoughts. He tried to hold on to the memories of his friends smiling faces, but they were slipping through the cracks like sand, replaced with the buried memories of Donald and Goofy walking away, Riku holding a blade against him... and even moments that had never happened. Kairi's disappointed face. Riku and Kairi holding hands, laughing, while Sora stood far away. In a blink he could picture everyone moving on without him. Moving away from him. He felt his hand move towards hers.

Akiri smiled, taking his hand. "Do you see now?"

Sora opened his eyes. "I'm sorry, Akiri," he murmured. "But I can't."

Akiri's face twisted. She slapped his hand aside, stepping back. "_Fine! _But you'll see that I'm right! They'll never accept you for who you are! You'll always be alone!" she screamed. The shovel clattered to the floor as she ran out of sight around the corner. Her footsteps echoed against the stone until they faded away.

Sora leaned against the wall in shock, trying to process what just happened. His thoughts were just noise, screaming chaos. He clutched his head, willing it to stop, wishing that he would wake up and this would all be a bad dream. He kept blinking but everything stayed the same. The hissing of steam around him echoed the building pressure in his mind pushing to critical. Blinded and dazed, he started to run after her, the fire axe trailing loosely in his grip.

Sora followed the twisting turns of the hallway, stumbling against the pipes, struggling to stay on his feet. He did not know where he was going or what he was doing, only that he needed to find someone. Anyone. He ran and ran, the pipes hissing and screaming around him, and he wasn't sure if it was the steam anymore or if it was him screaming. His vision blurred and he swayed, overwhelmed to the point of collapse -- when he burst into an open space.

He was standing on the edge of a large circular clearing. Dying grass stretched out around his feet. Trees encircled the area, their bows still and silent. A full moon beamed down in a starless night sky, giving the clearing a pale glow.

In the middle of the clearing stood Akiri. She was staring up at the moon, expressionless and quiet. In the moonlight she looked helpless and frail. Tears glittered down her cheeks.

Sora made to move towards her, but was startled by a loud crash behind him. He spun around to see a gate blocking off the hallway where he had come in. He pulled at the bars, rattling the gate, but it was locked tight.

In the distance Sora could hear a sound, steadily beating louder. It was a long, wailing siren, the same one he remembered hearing in Brookhaven. Alarmed, Sora turned around.

The trees were withering before his eyes. The leaves curled and browned, and fell to the ground. The branches shriveled up and the trunks grayed. Fog moved like a tidal wave over the sky, concealing the moon with a thick haze and throwing the clearing into shadow. The grass beneath his feet shrunk away, and the dirt shifted and darkened. The siren was growing louder, ringing in his ears and rattling inside his head. Around him a red glow was burning around the ground, forming circles and symbols and runes.

A sharp scream jolted his attention away from the ground. His eyes snapped up and he felt the air collapse out of his lungs.

Something was stepping out of the shadows of the trees. Leaves and vines wove together into a thick mesh around its hips, concealing its feet as it stepped into the light. A bare torso, its heavy muscle tone hidden under a layer of dirt and mud, led up to a gaping dark hole in its chest. Its head was hidden under a lopsided pyramid of metal and thorns and withered roses. In its hands it clutched an enormous curving scythe, the handle wrapped in a convulsing layer of thorns and barbs.

Sora backed against the gate, staring. There was nowhere to go, no roof to fall off of, and no friends to save him. The thought of friends made him remember Akiri, and he pulled his attention away from the creature.

Akiri was standing, frozen, in front of the monster. It moved towards her, raising its scythe. Akiri started screaming.

"_Akiri!_"Sora yelled, and he lurched as he tried to run toward her. He had to windmill to get his balance -- his feet were rooted to the ground by a mass of twisting vines working their way up his shins. In his horror he hadn't noticed the Angiphytes stepping out of the trees around them, vines twisting across the ground.

The pyramid creature grabbed hold of Akiri's neck with one hand, the thick muscles of its arms bulging as it lifted her off the ground. Its crushing grip choked off her screams, and she dangled helplessly in the air, clawing at its hand. Vines poked out of its pale skin, crawling and twisting up its arm towards Akiri. Akiri watched with wide eyes as the vines began to wrap around her body.

Sora's mind was awash with unintelligible screaming. _No no no nonononono _"No! Stop! _Akiri!_" he yelled. He tried to leap forward but he was rooted tightly to the spot. He fell backwards, rapping the back of his head against the gate with a clang. His vision blacked out for a second.

When his sight swam back into focus, Akiri's head was just barely visible above a cocoon of thorns. Her face was starting to turn a deep purple, her eyes drifting towards the top of her head. The vines stopped moving, and for a long, tense second, nothing happened. Sora clenched his eyes shut.

The silence was punctured by a loud crack like a gunshot. There was a sharp hiss and a quiet patter like rain on the dirt. Something warm misted his forehead. There was a pause and then a loud thump of something hitting the ground.

His eyes eased open. Akiri's crushed and mangled body laid in mud at the monster's feet. Blood-soaked vines retreated inside its body, rippling its muscles.

Sora stared at Akiri's body, numb with shock, his screams dying in his throat. The Angiphytes had begun fighting with one another. The pyramid monster gazed down at the body, leaning the blade of the scythe to her chest. The ribcage was a splintered mess. The blade gingerly peeled away a lump of tissue -- her heart.

A boiling pain rippled across Sora's arm. The dark substance was flowing up Sora's fingertips, washing over his arm and chest and stretching down towards his legs. His thoughts died away, replaced with a surging, single-minded rage. He felt his muscles tense like a spring as power burst into him.

He glanced down at the roots binding his feet. With one swipe of his darkened arm, he ripped them away, freeing himself. The movement of light attracted the creature's attention. It turned away from Akiri's body towards Sora, holding up the scythe. Sora brandished the fire axe. His terror and anguish quieted to a dim growl beneath a howling desire to destroy.

He leapt forward, quickly closing the distance between himself and the monster. It made a wide swipe with its scythe but Sora sprung out of range, swinging the fire axe into its shoulder. The creature screamed and twisted, grasping for Sora. He ripped the axe away and darted out of its reach.

The monster swung the scythe at the ground in front of it, the blade sinking into the dirt. Sora watched, alert, waiting. The ground rumbled beneath their feet as monstrous roots burst from the ground. Sora leapt out of the way as they reached blindly for him. He whirled the axe around, slicing the roots apart. New ones replaced the old as fast as he could carve them. The creature used this opportunity to pull closer, until suddenly its hands were around Sora's neck.

Sora felt the axe drop out of his hands as he was lifted off the ground. His feet kicked wildly in the air, pummeling the monster's stomach and chest to no effect. Distantly he could feel the air squeezing out of his lungs as he gasped for breath, the hand around his neck tightening. Fear and panic were overwhelming the feral rage, as vines began to poke out of the monster's skin. Sora stared into the eyeless gaze of the pyramid, feeling the stinging terror of knowing he was about to die.

His foot kicked against the hole in the creature's chest, and for a split second he felt the monster shudder. Darkness was swarming over the right side of his face, muddling his eyesight. The fear was crawling back, replaced with a stroke of hope. It was enough.

Sora flung his arm out, making a vicious swipe at the hole in the creature's chest. It flinched with a roar. The movement was just enough for Sora to reach closer, and he punched with all his might at the hole. He felt his hand rip into the creature's chest.

His head rattled with a piercing scream. The grip around his neck released and he fell to the ground. Vision swimming, he watched as the monster backed up, clutching its chest. It sunk back towards the shadows, the Angiphytes following with it.

His eyes drifted to Akiri in front of him. Her clouding eyes stared past him into nothingness. Sora's hand shook as he tried to reach out to touch her. He heard a rushing sound inside his ears, and everything went black.

----

_Back and forth, back and forth. He watched his feet swinging back and forth, dangling above the ground. His feet could not touch the ground but he knew when he was older, he would be big, and he could touch the floor. As it was, he was still too small to fit in the big metal chair. He leaned on his hands, glancing around the room. There were empty chairs like his everywhere, and some small tables with magazines. He had already looked at all the pictures in them. A television in the corner was broadcasting the news. Sora tuned it out. It was boring. Bored, bored, bored. _

_With a huff, he pushed himself off the chair. He glanced furtively at the big counter nearby. The desk clerk was supposed to be keeping an eye on him, making sure he did not wander off. If he stood on his tippy-toes, he could see that she was busy chatting on the phone to someone. She was not paying the least bit attention to him. With a smile, Sora snuck away down the hall. He came to a set of swinging doors and pushed his way past with a quiet giggle. _

_He was standing in a long, shiny hallway. Doors lined the hall on either side. He could see that they all had windows in them, but he was still too short to see through them. He walked slowly down the hall, puzzling over which door to choose. _

_One of the doors opened. Startled, he looked for a place to hide and ducked behind a cart. A nurse stepped out, covered from head to toe in a blue uniform. Sora caught a quick glimpse of a dark stain on her clothes before she turned and started walking down the hall, oblivious to his presence. _

_Sora crept out from his hiding place and slipped to the door. The nurse left it slightly ajar, and Sora pushed gently against it, peeking inside. _

_The room was crowded with equipment and nurses and bright, shiny lights. The nurses were all talking softly to each other as they milled around the room, picking up tools and moving carts and poking at the machines. One of the monitors was emitting a long, piercing sound that made Sora's ears hurt. In the middle of the room was a long table. He caught a quick glimpse of someone lying on the table before one of the nurses covered them in a sheet. _

_Sora peered around the room and finally saw what he was looking for. A man was walking around the room, talking to the nurses. His goggles made him look like a bug-eyed alien. Even under all the weird clothing, Sora could tell who it was. He squirmed, suppressing the urge to run into the room. _

_The man sighed and glanced at the door. He did a double take when he saw Sora's eyes peering around the doorframe. Discovered, Sora scrambled to get out of the way, but it only took a few steps for the man to make it to the door and outside into the hall. He pulled off the goggles and the mask over his mouth, and Sora stared sheepishly up at his father's face._

_"Sora? What are you doing here?" he sighed, exasperated. "I thought I told you to stay in the waiting room." There were dark rings under his eyes, and he visibly sagged now that he was outside the room. _

_"Daddy, when are we going home?" Sora whined. _

_"Soon, I just need to finish up with this patient..." _

_Sora turned his feet in and out, in and out. "What's wrong? Is he okay?" _

_His father hesitated, glancing back through the window. "He's... no, Sora, he's not okay," he replied. He kneeled down to get closer to Sora's eye level. "I'm afraid your Dad wasn't able to help him." _

_Sora wrestled with this. "Is he sleeping?" _

_"No, he's not sleeping..." He grappled for something that would make sense. "Do you remember your goldfish?" _

_Sora thought. "Goldie?" _

_He gave a weak smile. "Yeah, Goldie. Remember when Goldie stopped swimming and we had to say goodbye?" _

_Sora nodded slowly. _

_"Well, sometimes... when people are really hurt or sick... they stop, too. It's called dying."_

_Sora blinked, taking this in. "Will Daddy die?" _

_He frowned. "No, not today... but... someday. Everyone dies someday." _

_Sora stared at his father, then stared down at his feet. Tears welled in his eyes. "Am I gonna die?" _

_Sora felt his fathers arms wrap around him. "No. Not for a long, long time. I promise."_

_The warmth of the embrace dissipated. Sora leaned back in surprise to see that his father was starting to disappear into a plume of black smoke. "D-daddy?!" he cried in confusion. His tiny hand reached to hold on to his father's arm, but it vanished into a dark haze. The hallway around him was smoking, slowly disintegrating into a black void. Sora began to run, trying to get away, but soon everything around him was black. He looked down at his hands and saw they, too, were disappearing into darkness. He screamed, but could only watch helplessly as he was swallowed into darkness. _

A red glow seeped into the black. Sora's eyes fluttered open, squinting at the bright light below his chin. He heard his muscles crack and pop as he pulled himself up into a sitting position, consciousness awash with grogginess.

He was sitting in the middle of the clearing. The grass had returned, and the strange symbol on the ground was gone. Leaves had returned to the trees, rustling in a cool breeze. A heavy, swirling fog gave the overcast air a steel blue haze.

A throbbing pain around his neck charged into his consciousness. He clutched his neck and coughed, recalling the sensation of being choked. Events were starting to come back to him. With great trepidation, he glanced to his side.

Akiri's body was gone, a large, dark stain in the grass the only remnant left. Sora staggered to his feet in a panic, looking around.

A pile of freshly turned earth sat in front of a tree. His blood-soaked jacket covered the ground, and Akiri's shovel was stuck into the dirt. Sora swayed towards the spot, staring down at the ground. His strength left him, and he fell to his knees.

"Tragic, isn't it?" a low voice spoke behind him.

Sora whirled around. The man in the black cloak was leaning against the gate, watching. He pushed away, stepping towards Sora.

"What a shame she had to die that way," he tsked. He folded his arms, staring down at the grave. "You are so cruel, Sora. But then again, she was always such a manipulative little witch."

Sora rose shakily to his feet, furiously wiping tears from his cheeks. "What are you talking about?!" he sniffed. "It wasn't my fault! That monster killed her! I... I couldn't do anything..." He felt his knees shake again.

The stranger leaned towards Sora. Even this close, the light could not reach past his hood. "That's the question, isn't it? Who was the real monster?"

Sora turned away, back to the pile of dark earth. He kneeled and touched his jacket, glancing at the smears of blood it left on his fingertips. "All she wanted was for me to stay with her," he muttered. "Maybe she was right about everything. Maybe it would have been better if I went with her and forgot about everything." He clutched the jacket beneath his hands. "I couldn't even save her... how am I supposed to save my friends?" He rubbed his eyes and glared up at the hooded man. "Why do you care, anyway? Isn't this what you Nobodies want?" He waved a hand at the grave. "You don't care who gets in your way as long as you get your hearts back!" he spat.

The man leaned away. "Are you so different, Sora?" he taunted. "What lengths will you go to stop the Organization and save your friends? Who else will you destroy?"

Sora snorted, folding his arms. "It's not the same! Nobodies don't have hearts! They're not really alive to begin with. Who cares what happens to them! They can't feel loss."

"Is that so? Is that what it means to be alive?" he snickered. "Tell me, how do you know that your friend there had a heart? Because you saw it pulled outside her chest?"

Sora stared down at the grave and did not answer.

The man fumbled through his coat. A keycard landed on top of the jacket in front of Sora. A drawing of a skeleton riding a white horse was drawn on the top of the card, with thirteen holes punched below it.

"A parting gift," the man explained. "You should clear your head, Sora. A visit to the amusement park might cheer you up. But don't forget our promise. I'm still waiting to meet you at the church."

Sora looked up, ready to tell him off -- but the man was gone. He was sitting in the empty clearing, alone. Sora pocketed the card and stood up. He hesitated, and began scavenging around the clearing. After some searching, he was able to find a rock large enough to write Akiri's name on with the last of his red crayon. He pulled the shovel out of the dirt and replaced it with the rock. For a moment he stood staring down at the grave.

"I guess... this is goodbye," he whispered. "I'm sorry." He closed his eyes and walked away.

He picked up the chipped fire axe by the gate; the cloaked man must have moved it to keep it away from Sora. The keycard opened the gate out. He was not walking long when he heard voices through the noise of the brass pipes.

"... I told you we should have gone right! _Right!_" a scratchy voice snapped. Sora might not have been able to understand what he was saying at all if he was not used to hearing it all the time.

"I thought we did go right," another voice responded apologetically.

"That was _left!_"

Sora turned a corner. Donald and Goofy were walking down the corridor in front of him, arguing. Sora blinked, but they were still there.

"Donald! Goofy!" he yelled. The two looked around in confusion. Sora ran down the hall, pulling them into a hug. The fire axe and shovel clattered to the ground.

"Wak! Let go of me!" Donald cried, flapping his arms.

Sora let go of them, stepping back. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you guys!" he said, rubbing his nose.

Goofy grinned. "Gosh, Sora, I'm glad to see you, too!"

Donald crossed his arms and tapped his foot, refusing to look at Sora's face. "We would have gotten here sooner if Goofy hadn't gotten us lost!"

Goofy scratched the back of his head. "Aw, shucks... it all looks the same to me..."

"And he lost his shield, so we had to run away from every Heartless or Nobody we ran into!"

Sora picked up the shovel and handed it to Goofy. "Here, take this instead."

Goofy took it reluctantly. "But Sora, isn't this Akiri's?"

The smile faded from Sora's face.

Donald glanced up at Sora suspiciously. "Yeah, where is she?"

Sora stared down at the ground. "She... left," he answered quietly.

Donald snorted. "See, I told you! What did I tell you, Goofy? I never liked her!"

Goofy glanced from Sora's melancholy expression to Donald. "That's enough, Donald!" he rebuked. Donald blinked up at Goofy in surprise. "We're back together and that's all that matters!"

"Yeah... let's get out of here," Sora muttered, picking up the axe.

They walked together down the hall. Goofy glanced again at Sora. "Did you get to the end of the... uh..."

"Labyrinth?" Donald chimed in.

"Yeah, h'yuck, the labyrinth!"

Sora looked away. "Yeah, I did."

"What was there?" Donald asked.

"Nothing," Sora muttered. "Just a monster."

--

_Author Note: Please see my profile for more information and updates about this story._


	12. Regards

A new gate had appeared in the long, circular hallway. They burst out of the labyrinth onto a winding dirt road. As they walked, the forest fell away behind them, and they found themselves once more on a wide, empty, asphalt road. Thick fog obscured the road ahead and behind them. The quiet sound of moving water to their right filled the stagnant air like white noise, punctuated by the heartbeat rhythm of their feet against the pavement. They walked, and walked, and walked, and Sora began to wonder if he was even awake, or if this was some sort of monotonous nightmare.

Having failed in an attempt to lead the group in a sing-along, Goofy procured a battered piece of paper from one of his pockets. It was a list of games that Goofy brought out whenever they were on a long trip between worlds.

"I spy... with my little eye..." Goofy started, looking around. "Something, uh... gray!"

"Fog," Sora droned.

"Yup! That's another point for Sora, h'yuck!"

"Yipee."

Donald stomped his feet. "He's got 30 points already! Let me answer one!"

"Okay... I spy... with my little eye..."

"Concrete," Sora interjected.

"Something-- yeah! How did you know?"

"Hey! No fair! That was for me, Sora!" Donald fumed, tapping his cane against the ground. "Let's play a different game!"

"A different game? Hmm... okay, how 'bout this one? I'm gonna think of a person, and you gotta guess who it is!"

Sora brightened but Donald jumped in front of him. "Let me guess it! Uh... is it a man or a woman?" Donald asked.

"Man! I guess... well..."

"Is he short or tall?"

"Err... kinda tall-ish short."

Donald blinked in confusion but pushed ahead. "Is he fat or thin?"

"Thin! Or... kinda..."

"Is he a good guy or a bad guy?"

Goofy hesitated, struggling to settle on an answer. "Uh... well, good, I suppose... he was bad, but..."

Sora stared at Goofy. "Is it Riku you're talking about?"

"Yep!" Goofy replied, relieved.

Donald exploded into a raging whirlwind of flailing arms and feet. "_SORAAAA!_"

"Whoops... sorry, Donald," Sora said, stepping out of the way of Donald's wrath. "I've just never heard Riku described like that before." He paused. "Kind of makes sense," he mumbled.

"Where is Riku, anyway?" Donald snapped, still seething. "We've been all over this town! I don't think he was ever here!"

"I saw him!" Sora shot back. "He's here somewhere, we just have to find him!"

Donald shook his head. He stood rooted to the spot, forcing Sora and Goofy to stop as well. "I've had it! We should go back to the ship! Chip and Dale must have fixed it by now!"

"How are we gonna get back?" Goofy asked. "The roads are blocked, and the radio still doesn't work."

"I know that! We'll find another way around!"

"But we've come so far..."

"If you two want to stay here, fine! I'm going back!" Donald huffed. He pivoted and began to storm back in the opposite direction.

"Donald! Wait!" Goofy cried, wringing his hands in exasperation. He did not want Donald to go off on his own, but he was reluctant to leave Sora behind as well.

Sora watched Donald leave, frowning. Sora was used to Donald's quick temper and sullen grumpiness when he did not get his way. This time his patience for Donald's attitude was wearing thin. What did he care if Donald left? It would be more peaceful without him anyway.

For a second he saw a flash of Akiri's livid blue eyes staring at him. He saw the snarl of her lips as she spat noiseless words and turned, running away. His ears were ringing so loud he felt like his head was going to split open. His vision swam and his thoughts clouded. Without realizing it, he was charging after Donald. Startled by Sora's sudden burst of energy, Goofy didn't move.

Sora closed the distance between him and Donald in several long strides. He reached out and grabbed Donald by the shirt collar. He gave Donald's collar a sharp tug, ripping him out of his march. Donald flew backwards, hitting the pavement beside Sora with a thud.

"Hey! What's the big idea?!" Donald gasped. "If you're trying to stop me, forget it!" He started to push himself up off the ground and froze. The blade of the fire axe was inches from his throat. "S-Sora...?" Donald gulped.

"You're not going anywhere," Sora growled. Dark smoke was swirling up his arm, shadowing his face.

Goofy ran over to them, hovering cautiously beside Donald. "Sora... t-that's not funny, p-put that down," Goofy stuttered, trying to make himself sound more authoritative than he felt. Sora shot him a stony glare and Goofy flinched.

"No one leaves," Sora said. "Not now. Not after all we've been through."

Goofy leaned slowly towards Sora, holding up his hands. "Okay... you're right... we're pals, aren't we? We gotta stick together!" He placed a hand on Sora's arm, coaxing the fire axe down.

Donald shuffled away from Sora's reach, refusing to meet his eyes. He mumbled something under his breath.

Sora tore the fire axe out of Goofy's hand, leaping towards Donald. A silver blur swept wide and hit the pavement at Donald's feet with a loud clang. Donald's eyes widened and he scrambled to his feet. Sora was already winding up for another swipe. The axe swung towards Donald -- and rebounded off the blade of Goofy's shovel, who had jumped in-between Sora and Donald. The fire axe dropped back to the ground. Sora snarled, darkness singeing his hair and misting his vision. He moved to swing again. Before he could lift the axe, the flat side of the shovel slammed against his right shoulder. The force was enough to knock him off his feet, the axe clattering to the ground as his head rapped against the pavement.

Donald and Goofy stood back in shock, staring down at Sora. The darkness that had spread across his body was evaporating. He clutched his arm, moaning in pain.

Goofy eased his grip on the shovel, stepping towards Sora. "Sora...? Are you okay?"

Sora sat up, rubbing the back of his head. "Augh... Goofy? What happened?" he groaned, eyes blinking open. He tried to focus on the axe lying at his feet, up to the spotty image of Donald and Goofy's frightened faces.

"You tried to kill me!" Donald gasped, backing away.

Sora looked from one to the other. "What? Come on, guys," he chuckled. His smile faded when he realized neither of them was laughing. "You... you guys are joking, right? I'd never..."

Goofy bit his lip. "Sora... do you notice when you get upset, you kinda... change?"

"Change? How?" Sora blinked, watching Donald inch away.

"This black stuff comes out of your arm!" Donald said, gesturing imaginary smoke.

Goofy nodded. "Your eyes and your voice change, too."

"What are you guys talking about?" Sora said, pushing himself to his feet. "Everyone's different when they're mad, right?"

"But you're completely different!" Goofy contested. "It's like you're somebody else!"

"Yeah, like some kind of monster!" Donald added.

Sora froze, staring at Donald. "I think this place is getting to your guys' heads," he sighed. He picked up the axe and swung it over his shoulder. "C'mon, let's keep going!" He turned and started to walk again.

Goofy moved to follow but was stopped by a tug on his arm.

"I don't think we should follow him," Donald whispered.

Goofy frowned. "We can't let him go by himself!"

Donald shook his head. "There's something wrong with him! He's been acting funny since we got here and it keeps getting worse! He could have killed both of us! What if he doesn't snap out of it next time?"

"Well that's a risk we gotta take!" Goofy retorted. "I'm not givin' up on my best buddy no matter what! If you won't help him, I will!" Goofy pulled his arm away and ran after Sora.

Donald watched Goofy's back, crestfallen. _Since when was he your _best_ buddy? _he brooded.

--

They continued through the fog in silence, the road stretching endlessly in front of their feet. Sora could not help but notice the constant presence of Goofy by his side. Every so often he could feel the weight of Goofy's eyes watching him. If their eyes met, Goofy would give him a brief smile and look away. Grateful as Sora was to have Goofy close, he knew Goofy was trying to keep an eye on him. Just in case. Donald still trailed just far enough behind to not get lost to the fog.

His arm and head still ached. Sora figured he must have dozed off while walking, and fell. It was such a long, tedious walk... it made more sense, anyway, than the idea that Goofy hit him in an attempt to save Donald's life. Sora and Donald had their fair share of squabbles, but Sora could not imagine himself ever being upset enough to kill anyone, much less someone he considered to be a good friend. In the silence he strained to remember what had happened to cause such apprehension from his friends, but could only remember shadows and colors, and Akiri's leering scowl. He knew he sometimes acted... differently since they got here, but that was only because things _were_ so different here. Since he first paired up with Donald and Goofy, he had learned to press on through doubts and fears with a smile and a laugh. He became accustomed to the presence of light and magic, and the reassuring power of the Keyblade. None of that existed here, and he was finding it harder and harder to placate himself with the same mantras, the same convictions that were once so strong. In the darkness and the fog, there was only him and his emotions. Fear, rage, and doubt sliced like hot knives through the bonds holding everything he believed together. If what Donald and Goofy said were true, what did that mean about him? Who -- or what -- was he becoming?

Sora was shaken out of his thoughts by a large, dark shape looming out of the fog to the right side of the road. Sora slowed to get a better look. From what he could see, a low-lying wall surrounded a wide courtyard, leading up to a vast building. The structure was charred and decrepit, though mostly intact. The fire that had consumed it must have happened some time ago; the surrounding plant life had started to reclaim the building. Withered ivy climbed up into the gaping holes of large, empty windowpanes. Sora was suddenly reminded of a blocky, purple marking on his map of Silent Hill: "Lake View Hotel". He smiled; he knew not far to the north was the amusement park, and they could soon leave the road behind.

Sora was about to turn away when something moved out of the corner of his eye. He turned back to see the dark silhouette of a man in front of a broad window. _James...?_ Sora thought. He blinked and the silhouette was gone. Puzzled, he turned away.

--

The world around them was growing dark again, further narrowing their field of vision to what little Sora's headlight could reach. The three drew closer together, though Donald avoided looking at either of them. In the distance they could see a warm glow, and they headed towards it. The asphalt faded to brick and chipped concrete. Short, wrought iron fences lead to a brick tunnel. The ticket windows on either side were clouded with dust. Rusted turnstiles stretched across the hall. They squeezed past, the turnstiles screeching in the silent, foggy air.

They stepped into a large entrance plaza. Several tall lamps filled the space with a soft, warm glow. A bright, cold light reflected off the brick at Sora's feet. He turned to see an enormous illuminated sign over the archway: "Lakeside Amusement Park".

"Oh boy! An amusement park!" Goofy exclaimed.

"I bet there's something weird about it," Donald remarked dismissively, wandering over to a large map pinned up on a bulletin board.

"Lighten up, Donald! What could possibly be weird in an amusement park?" Sora taunted, wandering over to a bench. A large mascot costume of a pink rabbit in overalls was sitting on the bench. Its enormous eyes stared past Sora, its plastic smile smeared with something that looked unsettlingly like blood. Sora peered closer, half expecting the thing to move. It stayed perfectly still. He leaned back and turned away.

His vision was filled with the wide, grinning face of another pink rabbit standing right behind him. He felt his blood turn cold, and was about to scream when the rabbit gave a familiar chuckle. The mask was pulled off to reveal a very amused Goofy. Sora clutched his chest.

"Goofy!" Sora gasped.

"H'yuck, isn't it cute? I've always wanted to wear one of these," Goofy said.

"Yeah... cute..." Sora wheezed. He wandered towards a set of gates leading into the park, if only to distance himself from the strange rabbit costumes. Donald and Goofy followed him past the gates.

They were standing on a circular path of concrete and metal grating. Large plaster columns encircled the middle of the area; beyond them was a dark drop to nothing. Around the edge of the path were a variety of quaint, themed shops, barely visible under the light of scattered lanterns. Most of the shops were boarded up or blocked off.

They neared a large storefront. The windows displayed an assortment of souvenirs and sweets. Sora was about to try the door when he was startled by a burst of sound. Music had suddenly started to play over loudspeakers attached to the columns. It was a lively, tinkling calypso, the track popping and crackling in a harsh monotone. The three stood transfixed, the music settling like a haze into their minds.

Water was rushing through the pipes beneath their feet, spraying the grate where the joints were loose enough to let it escape. The quiet hiss of static joined the melody floating through the air. Sora was distracted by the realization that something besides water was moving below them. His eyes darted to the floor, trying to catch sight of the thing through the wet grate. In the darkness he could only get a glimpse of something rust-colored before it slunk out of sight. He elbowed Goofy, who was bouncing his fingers in time to the music in a stupor.

"Guys!" Sora hissed. "Snap out of it!" Goofy continued to stare into space. Sora glanced at Donald, who was swaying back and forth, eyes lidded.

A blur shot up from the dark. It settled onto one of the columns, and Sora got a split-second glimpse of a humanoid creature before it was upon him. Cold, wet fingers wrapped around his neck. The world spun as he was flung at the ground, air bursting from his lungs. Before he could catch sight of his assailant, he was upright again, being wheeled around by his neck. The creature holding him danced out of his vision, its movements fluid and graceful and startlingly quick. He felt his neck pop and strain as he was thrown about, as if the creature was attempting to rip his head off.

In his struggle to get free, Sora kicked Goofy in the shins and broadsided Donald's head, leaving them both stunned and confused as they emerged from their trance. By this time the monster had given up on its frenzied dance and was clawing frantically at Sora's throat, its long, cracked nails ripping into his skin. Sora screamed in pain, pummeling whatever he could reach. The creature's face was hidden under winding wraps of blood-soaked bandages, its mouth left uncovered. Sora could feel its moist breath on his cheek. His heartbeat pulsed sharply in his arteries beneath its fingertips.

A shovel came sailing through the air, striking the creature on the head with a clang. It gave a loud, gurgling screech, its head snapping around. Goofy shot it a triumphant smirk. Furious, it flung Sora to the ground, leaping towards Goofy. Goofy yelped and dodged as the thing flew past. Donald raced forward, striking his cane against its knees. The creature buckled, confused.

Sora scrambled for the fire axe laying forgotten in the shadows, clutching his throat with his free hand. Donald and Goofy were trying to beat the monster into submission, its arms flailing for a purchase on their skin. Sora ran forward, letting go of his neck to get a good grip on the axe. Donald and Goofy jumped out of the way just in time; the axe head swung down into the creature's neck, slicing clean through. The head rolled away and the body collapsed, shivering and then lying limp. The music and the static abruptly stopped.

Sora stared down for a moment at the creature. It was shaped like a woman, its skin bloated and wrinkled, moist and ice cold. It was wrapped sparingly in bloody, crusted bandages, dying the wrinkles of its pallid skin rust red.

"Are you okay, Sora?" Goofy asked, stepping towards him.

Sora started to nod and felt a sharp pain in his neck. His eyes widened and he dropped to his knees, coughing. The fire axe slipped from his hands as they flung to his neck. Hot blood bubbled above his fingers and soaked where the creature had scratched his throat raw. He could feel something trickling into his throat, and he coughed and hacked involuntarily in blind panic.

"Sora?!" Goofy cried, kneeling beside him.

Sora sunk to the ground, unable to speak, choking. In his terror he struck out randomly, ripping out the contents of his pockets. The syringe from the first aid kit fell tinkling to the ground in its package, red liquid beading at the end of the needle. Goofy spotted it and picked it up, feeling a rush of relief -- quickly fading to fear when he realized he had no idea how to use it. Sora thrashed, no longer able to cough, drowning. Goofy froze.

Donald leapt forward, furiously snatching the package out of Goofy's hands. He ripped the plastic off, and stabbed the needle into Sora's shoulder. The liquid bubbled and disappeared. Sora shuddered and lay still.

Goofy stared down at Sora's body in horror. Slowly, shakingly, he pulled Sora towards him. He gently pushed Sora's shoulder away, turning him over. Sora's eyes were closed, tearstains streaming through the dirt and dried blood caked on his cheeks. Blood soaked the gashes across his neck. Goofy flinched and clenched his eyes shut. He felt a hand on his shoulder shaking him.

"Goofy! Goofy, look!" Donald gasped. Goofy's eyes eased open.

The gashes were closing, the blood around them steaming as the skin healed. Sora lurched and began to cough again, his lungs clearing. Elated, Goofy pulled Sora into a crushing hug.

"Sora! You're okay!" Goofy sobbed.

Sora pushed away, trying to catch his breath. "Yeah... think... so..." he wheezed. "That was close." His fingers grazed his neck, the wounds completely gone.

Goofy tried to wipe his eyes. "I'm sorry I... I couldn't help ya... if it weren't for Donald you... you might..."

"Hey, I'm okay! Pull it together, Goof'!" Sora patted Goofy's shoulder, turning away. He opened his mouth to speak to Donald -- but there was no one there. A creak brought his attention to the shop door as it swung shut.


	13. Never Forgive Me Never Forget Me

Sora and Goofy stepped inside the dark shop. Sora swung the flashlight beam around, taking in the space. Wooden shelves lined the walls, with displays taking up most of the floor. The shelves were filled with boxes of chocolates and cookies, souvenir t-shirts and postcards, and dozens of plush toy versions of the pink rabbit. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. A number of the boxes had fallen off the shelves and spilled their contents on the floor, dust the only remnants of the sweets they once held.

"Donald?" Sora called. "Are you in here?"

Something shifted ahead of them. Sora and Goofy squeezed past the rows of merchandise. Against the back wall was a long check-out counter. Donald stood behind the counter with his back to them, frozen.

"Hey," Sora said, leaning on the counter. Donald tilted his head but did not turn around. "What's up? What are you doing in here?"

Donald pushed away from the counter. He began rummaging through the boxes on the back wall, holding up t-shirts and tossing them aside. "I'm looking for something!" he replied flatly.

Sora hoisted himself up onto the counter, pushing aside a stack of brochures. "Like what?"

"I don't know! Something useful! Something to help us get out of here!" Donald threw a box of pencils over his shoulder, nearly hitting Goofy in the head.

"That's great... really great," Sora remarked, unenthused. He cleared his throat, reveling for a moment in the sensation of breathing. "Look... I know you're still upset about whatever happened back on the road. I... I'm sorry. Okay? I didn't mean to... so let's just make up--"

Donald slammed a cookie tin against the shelf, startling Sora and Goofy. "It's not okay!" Donald snapped, spinning around to face Sora. "You're not the Sora we teamed up with! You've changed!" Sora opened his mouth to protest but Donald charged on. "You keep pressing us on and things just keep getting worse! You almost died!" His eyes flicked to the dried blood still caked around Sora's neck. "Worse, you almost killed me and Goofy! We're your friends! All we ever do is help! Why are we still going? What about Kairi, and King Mickey, and everyone else? What'll happen to them if we die?"

Sora bowed his head and did not respond. It was true that all three of them had been in mortal peril more times than he wanted to recall. It was also true that he was the one leading them into -- and, if Donald was to be believed, even the cause of -- these life-threatening situations. He knew he was purposely risking their lives to solve a mystery that might have no answer, and that every step forward took them another step away from safety and the comfortable world he had always known. Though the dangers here were strikingly and brutally real, he still felt nothing truly terrible could happen as long as they were together. He was too stubborn and proud to turn back now. "I'm sorry, Donald," Sora sighed. "Really, I am... but... we've come too far to quit now. I promise I'll be more careful. I know we'll make it if we stick together. You've already saved my life twice! So come on... I don't want to fight anymore." Sora gave Donald a pleading smile.

Donald frowned, looking dubious. "I don't know... I still think we should go back. Goofy--" Donald was cut off by a series of loud thuds, and Goofy's distinctive call of distress. Sora and Donald looked back towards the front of the store, where Goofy was nearly buried under a pile of boxes and souvenirs.

"Goofy! Are you alright?" Sora cried, jumping off the counter. Goofy emerged from the rubble, looking dazed.

"Gawrsh, I'm okay!" he replied, pulling a cookie tin off of his head. Something jingled loosely inside. Goofy pulled open the lid to reveal a handful of loose change, and a key. Sora picked up the key and held it to the light. A tag hanging off the end read "Coaster" in a smudgy hand.

"What's this for?" Sora wondered aloud.

"It must be something inside the park," Goofy suggested, pushing himself to his feet.

Sora pocketed the key and made for the door. "I think I got a good idea! Let's check it out!"

Donald hopped over the counter. "Wait! I'm not done talking to you!"

Sora turned around, pushing the door open with his back. "C'mon, we'll talk about it later!"

"But--!" Before Donald could protest, Sora and Goofy were already out of the shop. Donald let out a long, frustrated sigh, kicking aside a plush toy rabbit.

----

They left the circle of gift shops behind and entered a wide, open area. To the left towered the dark structure of an old-fashioned wooden roller coaster. A large, sputtering fluorescent sign was hung above the ride queue, advertising "Mountain Coaster". A few benches and lamps sat beside a low fence surrounding the space. Sora thought he could see other buildings beyond them, but on the other side of the fence was a sheer drop into black. The gate leading to the next area was chained shut; no matter how much the three of them beat on the gate, it didn't budge. Through the gate Sora could just see the exit for the ride.

Goofy hung on the gate in disappointment. "How are we gonna get over there?"

Sora pulled the key out of his pocket and looked to the glowing sign. "I think we have to get on the roller coaster. The exit's on the other side."

Donald followed Sora's gaze to the shadow of the roller coaster. "Ride _that_?"

Goofy wrung his hands. "I don't know, Sora, it doesn't look very safe..."

"Aw, come on! It will be fun!" Sora teased, racing to the entrance. He vaulted over the line divisions and dashed up the stairs. Donald and Goofy trailed behind reluctantly.

At the top was the entrance platform, the coaster track, and a small control room. The door was locked. There were no cars in sight and no sound of activity; just the whistle of the wind. Up close they could see that the ride was in grave disrepair. Some of the wooden support beams had rotted away, leaving the track rails suspended in mid-air in places. Goofy hurried across the track to the exit platform on the other side. The exit gates were boarded and blocked off.

Donald crossed his arms. "Broken! Too bad! Let's go back down."

Sora caught him as he turned to go back down the stairs. "Wait! Let's see what the key does."

"You gotta be kidding me!"

Sora pushed open the door of the control room. Windows looked out onto the track, and below them were a number of control panels. The controls were complicated-looking enough without being covered in dust, and Sora brushed the debris away in frustration, looking for something obvious. His fingertips brushed a keyhole, and he excitedly put the "Coaster" key in and turned. The room hummed and a few lights glowed to life. The thrill of success began to fade as Sora realized he had no idea which button did what. The labels had long since worn away to illegibility. Sora found the biggest button and pressed it. Nothing happened. Irritated, he began pushing buttons at random.

Bored of watching Goofy wander up and down the track inspecting the damage, Donald poked his head into the control room. Sora slammed his fist down on the control panel, inviting a flurry of little sparks. "Sora? What are you doing?"

"Trying to get this stupid thing to work!" Sora huffed.

"I told you, it's broken!"

Outside, Goofy was gazing out over the track. He could see the glow of other rides in the distance, and the ground far below. Feeling suddenly dizzy, he jumped away from the edge. A flash out of the corner of his eye made him turn his head. Headlights were turning around the track. Goofy only had a second to puzzle what it was before the tracks beneath his feet began to shudder. The train was heading straight for him at breakneck speed. Goofy howled in alarm, but there was nowhere to go. He had wandered far enough from the loading platform that there was nothing but air on either side of him, and the support beams behind him had dropped out, leaving a gap too far to jump. He flung up his hands in a feeble attempt to protect himself.

"Goofy!" Donald screamed. He climbed up on the control panel in panic. The cars screeched to a halt, inches away from Goofy. Donald and Sora ran out of the control room. Donald climbed over the cars until he was at the front. "Are you okay?" Goofy's knees were shaking wildly, but he gave Donald a relieved smile. Donald sighed in relief, helping Goofy into the car beside him.

Sora climbed over the cars towards Goofy and Donald. "See, I told you it works!" he said.

"We're getting out of here! This is too dangerous! I thought you said you were gonna be more careful!" Donald snapped back as Sora settled into the car behind him.

Sora frowned. "Alright, alright! I was just kidding!" He turned to head back to the loading platform.

Before he could move, the train suddenly lurched, throwing the trio down into their seats. The train slowly eased forward, pulling them away from the safety of the platform.

"What did you do?!" Donald cried, clutching the safety bar on the front of the car.

"I didn't do anything!" Sora retorted, looking around hurriedly for the seat belt. The buckle was missing.

The train rolled along the curves in the track, picking up speed. They entered a tunnel, immersing the trio in darkness. Lanterns glowed dimly from the ceiling. The clankityclank of the car wheels echoed along walls sculpted to look like rock. At the end of the tunnel, the tracks suddenly dipped down out of sight. Goofy grabbed Donald in terror and squeezed. Sora clutched the back of the seat in front of him.

The train burst through the tunnel and rocketed down the steep slope. Sora felt his stomach jump up to meet his heart. Donald screamed as loud as he could, almost rising out of the seat. Goofy's hat flew away into the darkness. As they hurtled towards the bottom of the hill, Sora realized in horror that there was no bottom; the tracks and beams were torn away. The three screamed as the train blew through what was left of the supports at the bottom of the track. The train continued to fall, and Sora was convinced they were done for when the train suddenly slammed onto another track. The wheels screeched and hissed as they struggled to stay on the track. The momentum from the fall kept them going, moving up and down small dips. The support beams over their head were just barely visible under the light of hanging, bare bulbs. Some of the beams were broken and hanging down towards the track; Goofy ducked just in time as a beam soared past them. They tore into a curve, the wheels sparking as the side of the cars lifted off the track. The train barreled towards another curve. The structure had collapsed, taking the track down with it.

"We gotta jump!" Sora screamed into the wind.

"WHAT?!" Donald yelled back.

As they neared the curve, Sora pushed himself to his feet. Goofy lifted Donald and together they all leapt out the side of the car. They fell, tumbling down onto the soft canopy of a ticket booth. Goofy and Donald rolled off the booth onto the ground. Above them, the coaster train screamed off the track, sailing down into the abyss outside the fence.

Sora pushed himself up, dazed. Everything stung and ached, but he was alive. He looked around. They were in a new area on the other side of the gate. On the ground, Goofy was pulling a ruffled but relatively unscathed Donald to his feet. Donald was fuming and cursing so rapidly that Sora couldn't make out what he was saying. Sora jumped down off of the ticket booth.

"Whew... that was fun, right?" he said.

Goofy was staring into space, swaying with his hand over his mouth. Donald rounded on Sora.

"_Sorrraaaaa!_" Donald growled, too exasperated to think straight.

Sora laughed. "Hey, at least nothing can be worse than that... right?"

--

Once Donald and Goofy had recovered, they explored the new area they had landed in. It was much the same as the last, with nothing remarkable to see or any way to get to the next courtyard. To the left was the entrance to some sort of attraction; with nowhere else to go, they went through the door.

Inside the building was a large, dark area. The line queue was set up to look like as if it were outside, with brick-paved paths, planters, fake trees and grass. A large billboard was painted with an image of a house and the words "Haunted Mansion" -- the title before it was worn away along with most of the paint.

"'Haunted'? How much more creepy can this place get?" Sora chuckled.

"I don't want to find out," Donald replied flatly.

"It's probably just a lot of cheesy effects and stuff," Sora said, pushing over a cardboard decoration of a gargoyle.

They walked up to the attraction entrance. An enormous facade of a mansion towered above them. Sora squinted; it looked awfully familiar. He gazed up to one of the windows. He thought he saw someone standing behind the curtains, but it was gone with the blink of an eye. He followed Donald up to the door; Goofy hung back, hesitant. Donald looked back.

"Are ya coming Goofy?" Donald asked.

Goofy slowly shook his head. "I don' know... I got a funny feeling about this..."

"Not you, too!" Sora sighed. "It'll be fine, I promise!"

Goofy joined them reluctantly. Together they walked through the double doors.

They were inside a wide entrance hall. Sora was struck with a sense of dejavu; it looked much like a place he had seen in the labyrinth, except more intact. The walls were covered in a dark, patterned mauve wallpaper, above a similarly tinted tile floor. There was nothing to speak of in the room, except for a single light shining on a set of double doors in the back of the room. As they stepped into the middle of the room, a voice suddenly boomed around them. It was scratchy, poppy and hollow, like a worn-out record.

"Welcome to the... Haunted Mansion!" the voice called.

Donald jumped. "What's that?!" He looked around wildly, but there was no one else in the room.

"I think it's a recording," Goofy said, though he did not look very assured; he couldn't see any speakers anywhere.

"We're so... you came. Please... inside... around. When you feel... ready... go... the door."

"Whelp... no turning back now!" Sora strode confidently towards the door, opening it before either Donald or Goofy had a chance to protest.

They stepped inside a small room. It was sparsely decorated with thick, heavy wooden furniture -- most of which was buckled, ripped apart or crushed. A mangled stag's head was mounted on the wall, the flesh almost rotted away. Dense cobwebs hung from the corners. Tall, fake windows stood dark in the left wall. The walls were strewn with dark stains and blocked off by wrought iron barricades.

"_Help... help..._" a voice croaked.

"Do you hear it?" the ghostly narrator echoed. "A... four was sliced... bloody pieces... this room. Ah, the cries of..."

Goofy sidled closer to Sora.

"The murderer was caught," the voice continued. "Do you... why he said he killed...? 'Because I... had to!'"

The voice cackled. Sora and Donald exchanged glances.

"Anyway, I'm lying," the voice said. "It's all just... joke. I wanted... scare you... truth is that only one... died..."

The ending was drowned out by a flash of light and a loud clap of thunder. Sora saw a shadow on the wall and jumped, before realizing it was his own shadow from the flash of fake lightning.

Donald pushed him towards the next door. "Come on! The sooner we get out of here the better!"

The next room appeared to be a small library. Heavy wooden bookshelves lined the wall, crammed with dusty tomes. There was a huge table in the center of the room with a barricade around it. Sitting at the table with its back to them was a black-cloaked figure.

"A Nobody?" Donald whispered.

Sora walked straight for the table, Donald and Goofy following anxiously behind. He slapped a hand on the figure's shoulder and swung it around to get a look. He immediately jumped away, tripping on the barricade and falling backwards.

The person inside the cloak was almost too mangled to recognize. He was about Sora's size, and his long white hair was matted with blood. The corpse slumped against the table with a sickening slap.

"That's... a quiet young man, but... friendly, as you can see," the voice simpered.

Goofy helped Sora to his feet. Sora clutched Goofy's arm and refused to look back at the body. "Sora, what is it?!" Goofy asked.

"He was so eager... meet you," the voice continued. "His hometown... but... came here... losing his way."

"It's Riku!" Sora gasped. He was breathing so fast he almost couldn't talk; his head felt light; the room was spinning.

"What? That can't be Riku!" Donald said, approaching the body cautiously. He gingerly nudged the figure. There was a loud snap and the head rolled onto the table. The three screamed, before seeing the exposed styrofoam left behind. "See, it's just a dummy!" Donald sighed. Sora slumped back to the floor, too relieved to stand.

"Oh, maybe you... know?" the voice called. "Where is the path to heaven?"

Goofy pulled Sora back to his feet. Sora rubbed his face and tried to give Goofy a reassuring smile. The gesture barely reached his lips.

"What a dirty trick!" Donald scoffed as they walked towards the door.

"It looked so real..." Sora muttered. "Do you... do you guys think Riku is in trouble?"

Donald and Goofy exchanged glances over Sora's shoulder. "No way!" Donald reassured. "Riku's strong! There's no way anything could happen to him!"

Sora sighed. "Yeah... I guess you're right... but..."

They stepped through the door into the next room. It was in poor shape, and piles of dusty, broken white furniture were barricaded off.

"This mansion is quite old," the voice fizzed. "So please... your step. Sometimes the floor suddenly... beneath... there's nothing."

Across the room was another door with an exit sign hung on it.

"The exit! We're almost out of here!" Sora cried. He leapt forward, eager to be rid of this place.

There was a loud cracking sound. Dust sprinkled down on them. "Sora! Watch out!" Goofy yelled.

Sora looked up just in time to see the ceiling tiles give way. He caught a glimpse of long, sharp spikes before he squeezed his eyes shut. There was the sharp scrape of metal, and a pause. Slowly he opened his eyes to see the spikes hovering inches above his head.

"I'm so sorry," the voice crackled. "This place... just falling apart. The... broken, you see. It wasn't... stop _there_, I assure you."

Sora hurried out from under the spikes, Donald and Goofy joining him on the other side.

"What did I say, Sora?" Donald admonished.

Sora shook his head. "Yeah, yeah, let's just get out of here!" He reached for the exit.

"There's the exit," the voice chimed in. "I hope... enjoyed your stay. Please come back... or if you'd prefer, we could... visit you instead."

"Yeah, right!" Sora snorted.

They walked through the door. They were inside a narrow corridor, stretching in front of them out of sight around a corner.

"That was supposed... the exit," the voice broke in. "But it seems... no one wants you to leave. Everyone really likes you. They... stay with them forever."

"What...?" Sora muttered. "This isn't funny anymore, where's the exit?"

"I have to agree with them," the narrator continued.

The walls around them were changing. A thick, black substance was spreading rapidly out from the door. As it began to cover the walls around them, the figures of Nightmare Shadows struggled to push themselves out of the walls, their antennae searching and their red eyes glowing.

"Don't be afraid," the voice said. "Dying is much easier than living."

The Nightmare Shadows crowded around them, more emerging as the substance spread. The corridor was too narrow to fight in and they were quickly surrounded.

"Run!" Sora yelled, hacking at a Shadow in front of him. Together they pushed their way out of the fray and began to chase after the line of darkness stretching out in front of them. Dozens of Nightmare Shadows swarmed around them, hissing and spitting. They raced around the corners, some of which were dead-ends, slowing them down. If they paused even a second, the darkness raced ahead of them, threatening to trap them inside. They turned around another corridor. At the end was a door, darkness stretching eagerly towards it. Shadows kept emerging from the walls, piling on top of them, pulling on their heels. Sora could hardly see -- he just kept struggling to get to the exit. Nightmare Shadows were already forming around the door.

"We're not going to make it!" Donald wailed.

Goofy suddenly stopped, brandishing his shovel. Sora skidded to a halt.

"Goofy! What are doing? Come on!" Sora cried.

"You guys go ahead! I'll hold 'em off!" Goofy shouted back.

Donald frantically shook his head. "No! We're not leaving you behind!"

Goofy shook Donald off. Donald stumbled back in surprise. "Go on! Keep him safe! " Goofy commanded.

Sora slammed a Nightmare Shadow out of the way. "No, Goofy--!"

Donald turned away, tugging Sora towards the exit. Sora struggled to get Donald's hands off of him, but they were already at the exit, knocking Heartless aside. Blood sprayed, the Shadows spit, everywhere their eyes shone around them -- Donald had the door open and was pushing Sora outside -- Sora got one last glimpse of Goofy alone, swinging his shovel at the Heartless before the door was slammed shut, and he was outside with Donald, safe.

They stood outside the door in the silence and the fog, a cold breeze chilling their already frozen bodies. They stood, waiting.


	14. Cold Blood

They sat outside the exit for what felt like hours. Sora tried to rub the goose-bumps off his bare arms, but he still felt cold. Donald sat staring into space. He hadn't said a word to Sora since they left Goofy behind. He had already tried to get back in. Donald had blasted the door with a barrage from his cane and every obscenity he could think of, but it held fast. He slumped to the ground in defeat, and that was where he remained.

It was playing over and over again in Sora's mind like a broken record. The door, the hall, the darkness and the Shadows, the red glint on the edge of the shovel. Without meaning to, he found himself thinking back to the battle at Hollow Bastion. Kneeling by Goofy's body, willing him to wake up. The numb shock as he was forced to follow his friends and leave Goofy behind. The joy when Goofy came back, alive and well, a little dazed but no worse for the wear. He could hear his own relieved laughter ringing in his ears.

That wasn't so long ago, but it felt a lifetime away. Even in the heat of battle, there was an innocence to that time, like a battle of toys between children. Good always triumphed over evil, and no one was really hurt. Shadows merely disappeared into light, Nobodies faded away, and no wound was impossible to cure with magic. The friendship and protection of Donald and Goofy were just a couple of the many comforts and constants he had found, and he never had a reason to imagine things would change.

Everything was different now. All the things he valued and thought were true meant nothing in the face of so much blood and rust and dirt. There were no magic cures, no special protections, no friendly faces. Just monsters and decay and death, and the creeping pain of all his deepest fears and worst memories amplified tenfold. He felt older, heavier under the burdening weight of all he had never wanted to see or couldn't understand. Through all the muck and the confusion, only one thing was certain. No matter how long they sat waiting outside the door, Goofy wouldn't be joining them again.

Sora pushed himself to his feet, looking around. To his right, an open gate lead to another area of the park. He could see the shadowy forms of more rides and attractions, and the glow of lanterns and light bulbs.

Sora turned back to Donald. He tapped Donald lightly on the shoulder. Donald flinched as if he had been struck. Slowly, he looked up at Sora.

"Come on, Donald... we can't stay here forever," Sora said gently.

Sora was prepared for some sort of sarcastic reply or sharp remark from Donald. Instead, Donald just looked away and got to his feet. Sora walked towards the open gate, Donald trailing at his feet like a lost puppy. He wasn't prepared for this sort of stunned quiet, and he found himself feeling just as lost and hurt as Donald looked.

--

The next area was crowded by a large, circular ride. Cars shaped like rockets hung from poles attached to a canopy, centered over a rotating center pole. The metal rockets were filled with gaping holes, and hung silently just above the ground, swaying slightly in the breeze. The ride didn't look operational, but it must have been used sometime recently. A small control booth sat right next to the ride. Someone had brushed the dust away from the controls. More curious than that, a chain was wrapped around the center pole. Sora traced the chain to the handle of a gate, which had been practically ripped open when the ride was running.

Donald eyed the chain warily. "Do you think it was James?" Donald suggested.

Sora thought back to the burnt-down hotel, and the figure in the window. He shook his head. "No way!"

With nowhere else to go, they stepped through the gate. "But who else is here?" Donald wondered aloud.

Besides James and Akiri -- and, of course, the man in the black cloak -- they had not met another soul. He was struck with the realization that he had forgotten something -- the phantom he had been chasing all this time in the fog. "Maybe it was Riku!"

Donald slumped in exasperation. "Sora..." he began.

"I know, I know, you don't believe me," Sora interrupted dismissively. "The King won't tell us what happened to him, right? What if he got lost here, too?"

Donald sighed. "It just doesn't make sense! Why would he come here? Why is he running away from us? And why haven't I seen him?" Donald stomped his foot in frustration.

Sora's confidence wavered. He stopped next to another circular ride. Several cars shaped like tea cups were placed inside a ring. Colorful light bulbs had been strung around the area, glowing faintly. _Why _is_ he running away? _Sora thought. _Doesn't he want to see me? _

Donald stood in front of Sora, hands on his hips. For a moment he just stared at Sora, watching him think. "Why do you want to find Riku, anyway?" Donald asked.

Sora's head jerked up in surprise. "Not you, too!" Sora groaned, turning away. He stepped onto the ride platform, trying to put some distance in-between him and Donald.

Donald followed after him. "Riku was a bad guy! Don't you remember everything he did to us? To you?"

Sora dodged around a tea cup. "That wasn't his fault! It was Ansem! Besides, he saved us at Kingdom Hearts, didn't he?"

"What if he never got out of Kingdom Hearts?" Donald countered. "What if he's a Heartless now? Or a Nobody?"

Sora clutched the rim of the tea cup, shaking his head. "No way! Not Riku! If Mickey could get out, so could he!"

"But--"

"I have to find him no matter what!" Sora interjected, barreling on without listening. "He's my friend!"

"_Goofy was your friend!_" Donald bellowed, slamming his fist against the side of the tea cup. Sora blinked in shock, staring at Donald. "Goofy's never been anything but a friend to you! He gave up everything to protect you! And all you can think about is _Riku?_"

Sora gazed abashed down at his hands. "I just don't understand..." Sora muttered. "If he's okay... why won't he let me know? I thought we were... friends..."

Donald worked his jaw, thinking. "What if..." Sora looked up. "What if the reason he's running away is you?"

The ground beneath their feet suddenly jerked. Already stunned, Sora had to scramble to keep a hold on the tea cup as it started to spin. Music was drifting in with the fog, and Sora could hear the rush of water somewhere underneath them. The radio clicked on, echoing the scratchy melody.

Donald climbed into the tea cup and slammed his hands over the sides of his head. "Sora! Cover your ears!" Donald cried, trying to keep a hold on the cane with his knees.

Sora was too distracted to listen, eyes roving around for a sign of movement. It was hard to see anything; the ground was spinning, the tea cups were spinning, everything was spinning around him. He thought he saw a couple dark shadows flitting around the tea cups, but the movement was so fluid and smooth, it was impossible to tell until they were practically in front of them.

Two Nightmare Dancers were darting around the tea cups. One lunged at Sora, and he jumped around another tea cup just in time for it to go spinning away. The interweaving patterns of the cups brought them closer together and further away, and they were soon caught in a cat and mouse chase, dancing around and around the ring. Sora managed to catch one as their tea cups went swinging by, the fire axe catching it in the chest. It flung away out of sight. The other was leaping across the cups, trying to get to Donald. Sora followed. The Dancer perched above Donald. Donald fumbled for the cane -- it clattered out of grip and tumbled out of the cup. The monster lunged, seizing him by the neck.

"Hey!" Sora yelled. The monster looked up in confusion, just as Sora's axe sunk into the back of its neck. The Dancer let loose a blood-curdling scream, and slumped onto the seat. The music slowed, and the ride with it. Slowly, the tea cups screeched to a stop, and the static cut off.

Sora leaned on the oversized cup, panting. Donald pushed himself out from under the corpse, flustered. "You okay, Donald?" Sora wheezed.

Donald shook his head. "Nevermind that! Where's my cane?!" Donald leapt out of the cup, swaying a bit -- the world still seemed to be spinning around him. He searched frantically around the tea cups. He saw a glint of silver and ran over, scooping the metal cane up into his arms. Donald was about to turn away when he saw the shine of something else. He bent down and picked it up, holding it to the light. It was a full water bottle.

Sora walked over, steadying himself on the tea cups. He caught sight of the water bottle. "Great! I'm thirsty." He made a swipe for the bottle and Donald dodged out of the way.

"You can't drink this! You don't know what's in it!" Donald retorted.

Sora sagged. "Yeaaah, I guess you're right. Come on, let's get off this thing... I feel sick."

Donald pocketed the water bottle, and they scrambled for the nearest exit.

--

The next area was rather small, and consisted of two attractions. To their right was a small, colorful entrance. If the decorations weren't a dead giveaway, the sign certainly was.

"Hey! A fortune teller!" Sora gasped.

Donald stared in disbelief. "Don't tell me you believe that stuff!"

Sora blinked at Donald. "You don't? Aren't you a magician or something?"

"That's real magic, not a bunch of hocus pocus mumbo jumbo!" Donald replied defensively.

Sora was already pushing his way past the curtains. The shop inside was cramped and practically crammed with knick-knacks, barely visible under the glow of a string of lights.

"I'll just wait out here!" Donald called. Sora could hear him muttering.

Sora reached the back of the room, feeling somewhat deflated -- no one was around. A single, small table sat at the back of the room. A set of tarot cards were spilled across the table cloth. Sora picked one up out of curiosity, and instantly dropped it. It was the same as the last keycard he had received in the labyrinth -- a skeleton riding a white horse. The numerals "XIII" were clearly printed on the bottom, and on the top "DEATH" was written in bold letters.

A shine of light drew his attention back to the table. A crystal ball was perched on top of a clawed stand. The substance inside swirled like the fog outside. At first Sora thought he was just seeing things, but the longer he stared, the clearer the image became.

A cloaked figure was walking in the rain. A large, heavy hood concealed his face. He stopped, and craned his head to look up at the top of a building. At the top, another boy in a black cloak stood. His face was almost concealed by a thick black blindfold, but the hair beating in the wind and the distinctive blade he clutched were unmistakable. Sora clutched the ball in both hands. _Riku!_

The crystal ball burnt in his fingers, and he instinctively tried to drop it. He couldn't let go. The mist inside the ball seeped outside the confines of the glass, the images enveloping him. Suddenly Sora was the one looking up at the building. There was a Keyblade in his hand again, and he was beating back Neo Shadows, trying to get to Riku. For a moment they were fighting back to back, and then they were facing one another. They lunged at one another, blades clashing. Sora could feel his own confusion and fear mixed with someone else's intense rage and hatred. _What's happening? What is this? Why am I fighting Riku?_

The images became a blur. Suddenly Riku was on the ground, defeated. He was shouting something at Sora, but Sora could only hear the rain beating around him. To his horror, he lashed out at Riku, and the image went black.

Suddenly he was sideways in the dirt, staring into Akiri's lifeless eyes again. Her mangled body was seeping fresh blood. _No! Not this again! _The image warped and suddenly it was Kairi's body, Kairi's dead eyes staring back at him. _Kairi! No! _He reached out for her but she was already gone, replaced with a vision of a dark corridor, Goofy's torn body lying against the floor. Deep, black gashes burned into his flesh. Sora willed himself to look away but his eyes wouldn't move, wouldn't blink. The images were flashing faster -- Donald ripped to pieces -- Riku beaten and mutilated -- faces he didn't recognize, screaming out in agony. He was standing on a mountain of corpses, friend and foe, Heartless and Nobody. They stirred to life and crawled up towards him. His mind was a tangled web of terror and bloodlust._ No! This isn't me! _Riku was reaching out for him, his face just a brutalized mess. _This isn't happening! This isn't real! I didn't do it! I didn't do it!_

There was a strong sensation of being pulled, and the images sucked away. He was staring down at the crystal ball again, looking at his own reflection. In the mist it distorted into a dark, shadowy image of himself, eyes glowing yellow. The ball dropped out of his hands, smashing into pieces on the floor. The loud shattering brought Donald running in.

Donald glanced down at the tiny shards of glass, up to Sora's violently shaking hands, up to Sora's wide, staring eyes. Donald grabbed Sora's shoulder and shook it. "Sora! What happened?"

Sora jumped away, nearly screaming, thinking he was still in the vision. When he saw it was Donald -- alive and well -- he sunk to the floor. "_I... I saw... everyone... everyone was dead... everyone..._" Sora whispered.

Donald leaned in. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

Sora hid his face with his hands. "_I wanted to kill them... I didn't want to... I killed them all..._"

"Sora! Snap out of it!" Donald cried, slapping Sora upside the head.

This seemed to work; Sora refocused his gaze on Donald. "What...? Donald? What happened?"

"I heard a scream! Are you okay? There's blood on your face!"

Sora felt a sharp sting in his hands; he pulled them away and realized they were bloody from several shards of glass embedded in his palm. Alarmed, he frantically started pulling the shards out. "I saw something..." He shook his head, pulling a small roll of bandages and tape out of his pockets that he had used to bandage Goofy before. "Nevermind. It's hocus pocus, right?" He finished bandaging his palms and jumped to his feet. His shoes hit something hidden in the debris, sending it skittering across the floor. Curious, he went to pick it up. He gingerly held it up to the light. It was a large, gold locket shaped like a seashell.

Donald glanced from Sora's hands to the locket. "Are you sure you're okay?"

--

They stepped out of the Fortune House and into the only other available option -- another building. They stepped inside of a small, damp space. It was the front queue of a child's dark ride. There were no cars on the track, and the doors in and out of the room were closed and locked. The room was decorated as if underwater, with fake plants, sand and pebbles. A display separated them from the track. It was a fountain with a statue of a mermaid girl in it. The paint on the stone had long worn away, so that the girl's eyes just stared blankly into nowhere. Her hands were held to her chest, pointing up to her neck, where there was a deep indentation. The fountain was dry.

Donald inspected the doors to the inside of the ride, but they didn't budge. "Another dead end?" he sighed.

Sora stood staring at the statue, palming the locket in one bandaged hand. He held the locket up to the indent on her chest. It fit inside.

Donald looked back. "What are you doing?"

Sora gestured Donald over. "Hey, can I see that water bottle?"

Donald pulled out the bottle and held it protectively to his chest. "Not if you're going to drink it!"

Sora snatched it out of his hands. "Of course not!" He carefully poured the water into the fountain basin. The water drained out of sight, and for a moment, nothing happened. Something clicked, and the locket glowed, emitting the plinking melody of a music box. The was a loud grounding, and the door to the ride opened.

"How'd you know to do that?" Donald questioned suspiciously.

Sora glanced from the statue to Donald. "Doesn't she look like Ariel?"

Donald squinted hard at the statue. "I don't see it! Besides, what does that have to do with anything?"

Sora rolled his eyes, heading for the door. "Did you pay attention to _anything_ in Atlantica?"

Donald followed after Sora. "No! I was too busy trying to learn all those silly songs!" he cried indignantly.

They were in a narrow passageway meant to be part of the ride. The props and decorations in the scene were ruined beyond repair by water damage. The door to the next part of the ride was blocked by debris, but a door to the side lead to a staff exit. It was unlocked.


	15. Silent Circus Memory of the Waters

They were outside again. Sora and Donald walked past a few booths and shops. One had a large sign with a blue popsicle painted on it; Sora had to practically drag Donald away from it.

They found themselves in an immense, circular courtyard. Beyond it was an enormous carousel. It was dark and still, the horses perched silently in mid-air. Sora jogged up the steps onto the platform, looking around. The once beautiful attraction was now twisted and distorted. The meticulously painted details on the horses had cracked and peeled. They looked as if they had been frozen, screaming and struggling to get away. The light bulbs lining the center pole and the canopy were shattered or dead. The wood had broken off in many places, revealing the rusted metal structure and thread plate underneath.

Donald leaned against one of the horses, watching Sora walk around. "Is this it? Where do we go from here?"

"I'm not sure..." Sora replied. He was inspecting a valve on the inside of one of the carousel supports. The support beams were lined up in intervals around the edge of the carousel; looking around, he saw they all had large metal valves on the inside. The valves were connected to pipes, leading down into the platform. From what little he could see, the pipes seemed to criss-cross and network inside the platform and out beyond the boundaries of the courtyard. Seized by an impulsive curiosity, he grabbed one of the valves and twisted.

He heard the trickle of water in the pipes beneath his feet. The light bulbs closest to him fizzed to life. Encouraged by his discovery, Sora darted over to the next valve, turning it. This time the lights across from him sparked to life.

"Donald! Help me out!" Sora called, running to another valve. This time when he turned it, the sound of water disappeared, and the first set of lights went out. He turned the valve the other way and the lights came back on.

Donald watched Sora in bafflement as he dodged around turning the valves. "What do you want me to do?"

"Help me figure out which combination turns all the lights on!" Sora replied, grunting as he tried to turn an especially rusted valve.

Together the two ran back and forth, turning the valves and turning them back. After several frustrating minutes, all the the lights had come on, and the water was rushing around beneath their feet. The platform lurched and slowly began to turn. The horses shakily rose and fell. Music crackled in the speakers.

Their mutual triumph dissipated when, to their dismay, the loud speakers began to emit a loud, wailing siren. The wooden structure of the carousel rotted away completely, leaving behind planes of metal grating laid over a thick network of pipes. Water roared around them, raining down from the canopy. The spray eroded the horses like acid; their wooden bodies mutated and oozed, covering them in a fleshy, shiny black slime. The poles shrunk back from the floor and curved into their bodies like hooks. The music was continuing to play amidst the fading siren, distorted and bubbling as if the speakers had been thrown into a pool of water.

Sora's eyes strayed to a dark shadow emerging from around the center pole. It was the dark figure of a boy in a black cloak. His pale skin was a deep bluish-purple tint, with dark veins branching underneath. Black slime oozed from his mouth and spilled down his chin. His long hair was matted with mold. A black blindfold was tied around his eyes. As the boy approached Sora, slumped over and taking long, jerking steps, the blindfold slid down his face. The eyes underneath were sunken in and swollen, and the pale aqua irises were hazed over.

Sora stepped back as the figure approached. "R-Riku? Is that you?" Sora asked, voice shaking.

The boy didn't respond. He paused, dead eyes seeming to stare both at, and past Sora at the same time. "_Who are you?_" he gurgled.

Sora looked around. Donald was missing. The carousel was spinning quickly, too fast to just jump off. _Where did Donald go? _"Riku, it's me! Sora! Don't you recognize me?"

The cloaked figure stepped closer to Sora. Sora stood his ground apprehensively. "_So...ra..._" he muttered.

"Right! What happened to you? You're..."

The boy wasn't listening. He was gazing down past Sora's chest, lost in thought. "_Sora... Sora... Why won't you... wake up... Sora..._" He glanced up to Sora, face suddenly contorting into a fierce grimace.

Before Sora knew what had hit him, the boy had knocked him to the ground. Sora struggled to get up but was slammed back down, hands clasped around his throat. The cloaked boy was sitting on his chest, pinning him to the floor by the neck. Sora felt the air rush out of his lungs.

"_Give him back! Give him back!_" The boy bellowed, practically throttling Sora. Sora scratched and clawed at the boy's arms, but Riku had always been bigger and stronger, even more so now. Sora felt the familiar, terrifying sensation of suffocating. He clenched his eyes shut.

"Sora! Get up!" Donald cried.

Sora's eyes snapped open. He was lying on the floor of the carousel, alone. His hands flew to his throat but there was nothing there. _What...?_

Donald popped into view, shaking Sora's shoulders. "Get up, quick!"

Sora scrambled to his feet, scooping up the fire axe. The horses around them were mutating. The legs and arms straightened and contorted into human limbs. The screaming horse heads twisted and warped into human faces, the eyes melted away. As Donald and Sora watched in fascinated horror, the horses all transformed into Nightmare Dancers, impaled on the long hooks hanging from the carousel canopy. The Dancers moaned and wailed together in disturbing harmony.

There was a loud, long scraping sound. From around the center pole stepped a tall figure. It had a huge, pyramid-shaped helmet over its head, covered in a snarl of small pipes and wire mesh. It was lithe but strongly built, and like the other Pyramid monsters they had encountered, had a deep gash in its chest. A long skirt apparently made of woven fish nets hung from its hips to the floor. In its hand it dragged an enormous, maul-like weapon.

"Run!" Donald squawked, scrambling out of the way.

Sora grabbed Donald by the collar, pulling him back. "Run where?! It's a carousel! There's nowhere to go!"

The Pyramid creature stopped, looking around. The Dancers around them writhed and sang. The creature's gaze snapped to Sora and Donald, and began to step haltingly towards them. Sora and Donald instinctively stepped backwards.

The Nightmare Dancers wailed louder, flailing their arms at Sora and Donald, reaching for them. "Hey! Shut up!" Donald cried out in frustration. He bludgeoned the nearest Dancer with his cane. The Nobody slumped on the hook and stopped singing. The Pyramid monster stopped and seemed to hesitate, before walking towards them again.

Sora blinked. "Donald! Do that again!"

Donald glared at Sora. "Stop bossing me around!" Still, Donald ran to the next hanging Dancer, beating it into silence. The Pyramid monster stopped and cried out in pain, redoubling its pace towards them. Sora and Donald kept out of its way, silencing the siren call of the Dancers. When the last one screamed and slumped lifelessly, the Pyramid monster let out a loud bellow.

"I thought that was supposed to stop him!" Donald wailed. The creature was practically ripping apart the carousel, swinging the maul around. Sora and Donald fell over themselves trying to get out of the way. Busted pipes were spraying torrents of water everywhere, filling the air with a thick, spiraling mist. In the confusion, Sora and Donald were separated. Panicked, Sora dropped the fire axe, and it flew outside the carousel into the darkness.

Sora looked around wildly through the screen of water. Not far from him, he heard Donald scream, cut off by a loud crack. "_Donald!_" Sora screamed. The carousel was spinning too fast to tell where the sound had come from, or where Donald had gone. Sora tried to run, but he slipped on the wet metal. He hit the platform face-first.

Behind him, he could hear the distinctive scrape of the maul against the grating. He flipped around to see the Pyramid monster looming above him. It was lifting the maul, preparing to strike.

Sora's mind was completely numb with panic. He couldn't think, couldn't move. The maul seemed to move in slow motion through the droplets of water, arcing down towards him. He threw his arms up instinctively in front of him.

There was a flash of pain, and a heavy weight. His eyes flew open to see that he had stopped the maul mid-swing with his hands. Shadowy flame was bursting from his fingertips, smoking down towards his chest, swirling around an empty spot just above his heart. _What is that? Is that what Donald and Goofy were talking about? _he thought. The flames swirled into his face, smoking his vision. His body was already moving on its own. It flung the maul to the side and lunged at the creature with incredible force. Sora could only watch helplessly as his body tore at the creature, ripping into the weak spot on its chest. Strips of flesh tore off its chest as easily as wrapping paper. Dimly he was aware that the creature was striking at him, but there was no pain, just a dull sense of impact. _What's going on? Am I doing this? _The creature staggered away, screeching. It tottered on the edge of the carousel and fell off, vanishing into the dark.

His body leapt back, watching the creature disappear. The dark smoke was fading, along with whatever had taken control of his body. He collapsed against the platform floor, feelingly crushingly heavy. The mist was fading, and the carousel slowing. Sora struggled to keep his eyes open, vertigo blurring his eyesight. "_Donald..._" Sora muttered. "_Riku_..." With a sensation like rushing water, everything went black.

---

_Dark shapes swam in front of his eyes. He blinked, trying to wipe the shapes away. They congealed and focused. A familiar dark city towered high above him. Closer still was the figure of a blindfolded boy gazing down at him -- if he could be said to be gazing without eyes. What was left uncovered of his face was blank and unreadable. _

_There was a flash of heat in his chest and arms that he felt must have been alarm or rage. He scrambled to his feet, ripping a Keyblade out of the ground next to where his head had once been. The blindfolded boy jumped back in surprise as he quickly recovered and charged. The boy attempted to throw some sort of dark flame at him, but he hit it aside with the Keyblade. He swung and the boy dodged, putting some distance between them. _

_He glared over at the blindfolded boy, his arms prickling in irritation. The boy didn't have any weapon; he stood with his arms at his sides, as if he did not want to fight. "Quit messing around!" he spat._

_The boy seemed to regard him for a moment. "What's wrong, Sora?" he called mockingly. "Finished already? Pathetic!"_

_He blinked at the taunt. Without thinking, he flew into a retort. "What are you talking about? You're the one who's losing!" He clasped a hand over his mouth -- the words had a unfamiliar, childishly brash ring to them. They weren't something he'd say, and he knew it was exactly what his opponent expected. _

_"I knew it, you really are his Nobody..." the boy said in a slightly lower tone, as if he weren't there. "I guess I have to trust DiZ..."_

_He clutched the Keyblade tightly in his hand. He was so annoyed and embarrassed he could hardly think. "Why are you talking about him?!" he snapped. "I'm me! Me!" He flung out a hand and another Keyblade -- a light one -- appeared. He charged, swinging both blades. The boy dodged, avoiding the attacks. He managed to strike a blow and the boy fell to his knees. _Why doesn't he fight back?_ he thought in frustration, watching the boy pant. "You can't beat me, no matter how hard you try!" he gloated. _

_The boy leaned against the ground. "I guess so..." he muttered. "Looks like I have to use it..."_

_He felt a prickle of alarm. "What?"_

_The boy pushed himself off the ground. "The power inside my heart..." He reached up to the back of the blindfold. "The power suppressed by my heart..." The blindfold began to slide off. "If I were to become somebody else..."_

_Before he could get a good look at the boy's eyes, the space around them suddenly erupted in pillars of black flame. He held the Keyblades out as his sides, waiting. The pillars disappeared, leaving behind a dark figure in a cloak. The man standing before him now was different, but oddly familiar. Before he could place it, the cloaked figure suddenly disappeared. _What?!_ He blinked and his vision was filled with the black cloak of the man standing directly in front of him. He craned his neck up to try to look into the man's face, but a blur shot out and a hand was suddenly wrapped around his neck, pulling him up into the air. He could feel himself choking as the fingers squeezed tighter, forcing him to let go of the Keyblades in an attempt to pry the hand off his neck -- but it was too late. His vision was already spotting with black; the man's face was just a blur in front of his eyes. A rushing sound like water was roaring in his ears._

_"The power of darkness."_

Water -- water was trickling and rushing and flowing all around him. The sound crackled in his ears and his eyes blinked open. Rusted thread plate rose up through his vision; he turned and the floor righted itself horizontal again. Sora was lying on the deck of the carousel, which had returned to the way it looked before the sirens, with a couple noticeable differences: the horses were splintered and shattered beyond recognition, and everything was wet. A thick mist drifted around him. He sat up, feeling as foggy as the weather._ What was that? A dream? _he thought vaguely. His hands strayed to his throat, which seemed to burn with the memory of fingers clutching his neck. Nothing about the dream made sense. _Riku, Riku was there..._ Riku was talking about something, something about him... he couldn't remember. Riku had disappeared and someone else had suddenly shown up... that didn't make much sense either. _Besides, Riku would never hurt me! _he thought._ It was just a bad dream! I'm sure Donald would agree--_

He stopped dead. Donald... the last thing he remembered was Donald screaming, and he hadn't seen him again. Panic flooded through him. The night was quiet around him, and he couldn't see or hear anything of his friend. "Donald?!" Sora cried. He ran to the other side of the carousel. There was a dark shape lying in a heap on the ground next to a hole smashed in the deck. He stepped back instinctively in fear, but a second look showed him it was Donald, lying face down. His left arm was turned at an odd angle, and his other arm was out in front of him, as if reaching. Sora fell to his knees beside Donald. He placed his hand lightly on Donald's unbroken arm; it was wet and ice cold. "_Donald?_" he whispered. He stared hard at Donald's back, looking for any sign of movement. He gently rocked Donald's shoulder. "Donald! Wake up!" _Think... think... what to do... _For a second he recalled a frantic Goofy turning out Sora's pockets. He reached inside his pockets and pulled out a small red bottle. He ripped off the bottle top, hands shaking so hard that some of the drink sprinkled the back of his hand. Carefully, he turned Donald's head and tilted the bottle to his beak, the liquid dribbling into Donald's throat.

Donald began to cough and hack, swatting the bottle away. Sora's relief was short-lived, as Donald attempted to push himself up with his broken arm and screamed. He shoved the bottle into Donald's flailing hand and Donald snatched it, chugging down the rest. Sora watched with mingled fear and apprehension as Donald's arm slowly moved back into place with a grinding sound. Slamming the empty bottle down on the deck, Donald collapsed backwards.

"Donald! Are you okay?" Sora cried, leaning over him.

"Do I look okay?!" Donald snapped, swinging his fists feebly up at Sora's face. "I was almost killed! _Again!_"

"Yeah, sorry about that..." Sora leaned back on his hands, feeling the tension flow out of his arms. Something strange under his hand made him jerk forward and turn around.

Where Donald's arm had been reaching was a large, dry space. Glistening in dark letters, still wet, was written: _If you seek the Truth, seek Me. _Beneath it was scrawled a strange, cross-like shape.

"It's not funny!" Donald fumed, kicking his feet. "If I run into another one of those Pyramid things... I'm gonna... I'm gonna...!"

"Donald, did you write this?" Sora interrupted, pointing to the words. Donald pushed himself up to get a look, frowning and rubbing his arm.

"No! What does it mea-- oh, who cares! Let's get out of here!" He jumped to his feet. "Where's my cane?!" He searched around the carousel, finally finding it lodged inside one of the broken wooden horses as if had been flung at high speed. They looked together at length to try and find the fire axe, but it had disappeared.

Sora and Donald jumped off the carousel and hurried away as fast as they could. As they walked away from the ride into the courtyard, Sora's eyes strayed to a door he hadn't noticed the first time. It was obvious why -- it was plain and unremarkable and almost covered with black moss. He tilted the flashlight towards it and the beam shone off a cross-like symbol that had recently been painted on the door. Sora seized Donald by the collar. "Hey, look! This way!"

Donald tore himself away from Sora's grasp and eyed the door. "We tried that one! It's locked!"

"No we didn't!" Sora walked up to the door and tried the handle. It creaked open into the darkness of the corridor beyond. Sora turned back to Donald with a smug look.

Donald peered into the dark corridor. "Do you know where this goes?"

Sora hesitated for a second. Donald's eyes narrowed. "Well -- maybe -- come on, there's nowhere else to go!" He stepped through the doorway.


	16. Walk on Vanity Ruins

The headlight flickered and dimmed. Sora tapped the battery pack, encouraging a spark of life in the lamp. Even at full strength, the light did not reach the end of the corridor. The darkness stretched endlessly in front of them no matter how far they walked, only reaching far enough to touch the walls close on either side. The pockmarked concrete pressed in around them, making the cold, thin air feel even more oppressive. Once in a while they came across a small intersection or short turn, but their passages had all collapsed. The sound of their footsteps was almost deafening, as if each step was the blow of a hammer against the stone and concrete.

Donald walked a step behind Sora, one hand clutching the cane, the other massaging his arm. The haunting sensation of his arm snapped in half lingered, an unsettling reminder of his most recent brush with death. _How many chances do I have left? _he thought. _Sora gave me the last of those weird Potions. _He watched Sora walking ahead of him. He was gazing at the walls; someone had written spiritual passages and notes all over them with red paint. Apparently someone else must have come after, because blue paint was strewn on top of the passages. The blue words were so vehemently written that they were difficult to make out, and Sora nearly tripped trying to read them.

Aside from being soaked to the bone, Sora had managed to come out from their last encounter relatively unscathed. James had said that the pyramid monster was impossible to fight, yet Sora always managed to make it through a battle with one -- without magic, and even without a weapon. Even if he had not seen it himself, he knew it must have something to do with the darkness that sometimes appeared around Sora, and the gaps in Sora's memory. _Goofy, you told me to keep him safe, but who really needs to be saved? _Donald thought anxiously. _Is this the same Sora we swore to follow?_

Sora craned his head back to glance at Donald. "Whassa matter? Your arm still hurting?"

Donald shot back a weak smile. "A-- a little. How much further do you think this goes?"

"I don't know, I didn't see anything like this on the map." There was a rustle as Sora pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and held it to the light. Water had smeared much of the ink away, leaving behind the waxy lines of red crayon floating in blue and gray pools. "We could be anywhere by now."

"But we're going _somewhere_! Are you sure you don't know where we're going?"

Sora struggled to fold the map back onto its original creases, cramming the disheveled paper back into his pocket. "I already told you, I have no idea!" he retorted. "Don't you trust me?"

Donald hesitated. "Well... yeah, but--" _But you're hiding something from me_. The last part died in his throat, as if saying the accusation aloud would realize all the doubts and fears building in his heart. _What would Sora need to keep a secret from me?_

The corridor sloped up into a flight of steps. At the top of the steps was a heavy wooden door. Someone had scribbled in red at eye level: "The Door to Paradise". Beneath it was scrawled "THE GATE TO HELL" in bold blue letters.

Donald eyed the graffiti incredulously. "So? Which is it?"

Sora shook his head. "It can't be both!" His eyes strayed to the lock, which had been practically ripped out. He pushed on the door with one hand and it swung forward.

Sora and Donald stepped inside of a vast, dark hall. Sora swung the headlight around to try and get a better look. To their left was a set of massive, ornate double doors. They were chained shut. A smaller door across the way was blocked off by the remnants of a dark wooden pew. The hall stretched out to their right, pews shoved back against the walls. They were thrown carelessly on top of one another, and many had been hewn roughly and indiscriminately. The walls were bare and stained with the exception of a few damaged paintings barely hanging on. The hardwood floor beneath their feet was gouged and black and strewn with ash. Lanterns hung from the vaulted ceiling and stretched down the hall, all in various states of destruction, all dark. In the upper right a dusty piano leaned on three legs by a small door. A heavy wooden altar sat relatively intact against the back wall, above which were three tall, narrow stained glass windows. It was too dark behind them to make out any sort of pattern or decoration.

The two stepped into the middle of the hall, stunned. Donald shifted the cane nervously around in his hands. "What happened here?" he muttered.

Sora moved towards the walls to get a closer look at the few remaining paintings. From what he could tell from the empty frames and impressions on the wall, there had once been six paintings; now, only two remained. Sora moved to the closest one, tilting the light towards it. The image was faded and blackened from smoke, but he could just make out the figures of two men writhing on the ground with their arms outstretched, and a woman screaming beside them. He squinted at the caption underneath it:

_Origin_

_In the beginning, people had nothing. Their bodies ached, and their hearts held nothing but hatred. They fought endlessly, but death never came. They despaired, stuck in eternal quagmire. _

He moved along the wall towards where the second painting should be. Only a bit of the caption remained:

_Birth_

_A man offered a serpent to the sun and prayed -- salvation. A woman offered ---------- to the sun ------ for joy. Feeling pity -------- overrun the earth, God was born from those two people. _

Nothing of the third painting remained. Sora moved across to the other wall where another painting hung. Curious, Donald followed, peering around Sora to get a look at the painting. It was in slightly better shape than the last. A woman in a flowing red dress floated through the clouds, supported by a host of human-like beings. The caption plate had fallen onto one of the broken pews; Sora picked it up and dusted it off, turning it towards the light. Here some of the words had been carved out of the plate:

_Creation_

_--- created beings to lead people in obedience to ---. The red god, ----------; the yellow god, -----------; many gods and angels. Finally, --- set out to create Paradise, where people would be happy just by being there._

The painting and caption next to this were completely missing, and of the last, only the caption remained:

_Faith_

_So God hasn't been lost. We must offer our prayers and not forget our faith. We wait in hope for the day when the path to Paradise will be opened._

"'Paradise'..." Sora mumbled.

The room was rapidly growing lighter. Sora spun on his heel to see the stained glass windows getting brighter. Large holes had been struck through windows, breaking down any recognizable image into shards of color. Sora squinted into the light.

"So. You made it," a voice echoed around them.

Sora tore his eyes away. Below the windows stood a figure in a black cloak -- the same one Sora had been chasing all this time. Shock gave way to a rush of hatred. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Donald spring into a defensive position. The man stepped next to the altar, his hood turning as if to gaze at Sora and Donald.

"Oh, but... aren't you missing one?" he remarked.

Donald stepped in front of Sora. "Who are you?! What do you want?!" he snapped.

"What, Sora didn't tell you about me? I'm hurt, I really am," he replied, voice flat. "After all, we've come so far together."

Donald glanced back up at Sora. "_Sora? What's he talking about?_" he whispered.

Sora quickly broke away from Donald's gaze. "Don't listen to him," he said loudly. "He's just another Nobody trying to trick us."

"Me? Trick you? Ha!" The man laughed, leaning on the altar. "Who are you trying to fool? Why did you lie about me, Sora? Why did you lie about the girl?"

"You've met him before?" Donald asked, lowering his weapon slightly.

Sora hesitated, but he knew he could not hide the truth any longer. "At the hospital, and in the labyrinth..." he muttered. "He told me to come here."

Donald stared at him incredulously. "Is that why you've pushed us all this way? For _him? _Why didn't you tell me?!"

Sora took a step back. "I... I thought..." he stammered.

"Did you stop to think this might be a trap?!"

"I... well..."

Donald had turned almost completely away from the cloaked man, the full weight of his shock and anger turned towards Sora. "You knew! You knew all along! I thought we were a team! I thought we were trying to get out of this together!"

"No! That's not..."

"I knew we should have gone back!" Donald raged on. He twisted the cane in his hand, as if he could bend it in half. "I knew we couldn't trust you! Because of you, Goofy..." Donald's arms shook. "For you, he..."

"_Donald,_" Sora pleaded.

Donald struck his cane at the floor in front of Sora's feet, the sound bursting off of the walls. Sora flinched. A heavy silence settled on the three, permeated by Donald's harsh breathing. The light from the windows sparkled off of Donald's back, leaning over the cane. Sora clenched and unclenched his hands, at a loss for what to say.

Slowly Donald stood up straight, keeping his gaze down at the floor, away from Sora. "The King said to find and stick with the Keyblade," he said in a low, hollow voice. "And it's not here." He began to walk back to the door, dragging the cane alongside him. Sora watched helplessly as Donald disappeared into the black of the corridor without a backwards glance.

Shock like ice was creeping up Sora's legs into his body. He stood frozen, unable to think or react. Thoughts and emotions were clashing together in an incapacitating cacophony.

A voice broke through Sora's consciousness. "How unfortunate," it said without sympathy.

Sora felt his nerves shatter and focus on a single point -- the man standing beside the altar. Before he knew it he was sprinting towards the cloaked figure. Without any real weapon, he jumped and swung his fist towards the hood. The man leaned back, swaying out of the way of Sora's wide, emotional punches. He backed up, leaving Sora panting and glaring.

"Why won't you fight me?!" Sora seethed. "What do you want from me?!"

"I want you to see the truth," the other answered calmly.

"'The truth'? What are you talking about?!"

"Sora, do you believe in Paradise?"

"What?"

"Paradise. Heaven. A place of light."

Sora stared at the man, torn between frustration and confusion. "I... yeah. Of course."

"Then you must also believe there is a Hell. A place of darkness."

Sora bit his lip. "I... guess so."

"Do you think that is all there is? Heaven and Hell? Light and dark?"

Sora relaxed his fists and crossed his arms. "What else would there be?"

The man stepped towards the beams of light stretching across the floor between them. "Some say there is a place in-between Heaven and Hell. A world between light and dark. A gray world." He stepped forward, splotches of light dappling across the black coat. "The path you choose is up to you. If you search the depths of your heart, you will discover what I mean by 'the truth'."

What any of this was supposed to mean, Sora had no idea. He tilted his head, squinting at the shadowed face inside the hood. "Who are you? Why did you want me to come here, anyway?"

The man turned his back to the windows. "A church is meant to be a holy place," he said, walking towards the middle of the room. "But without faith, a church is nothing more than a building." He walked towards the first painting, brushing away the dust with a gloved hand. "It is easy to lose sight of what one believes in when one cannot see it or touch it. Tell me, Sora... what is it you truly believe in? The strength of your weapons? The companionship of your friends? The words of your elders?"

Sora's eyes fell to his feet. He watched the splotches of color twinkle across the surface of the floor. He had nothing to fight with -- not the power of the Keyblade or magic, or even a pipe or axe to swing. His friends had disappeared or left. All the talks of good and evil, of justice and order, were unraveling around his blood-stained hands. What was left to believe in?

The man watched the thoughts pass across Sora's face and let out a hollow laugh. "If they were worth believing in, then your faith wouldn't be shaken so easily."

Sora clenched his fists and glared at the cloaked figure. "Oh yeah? What about you? Why did you come here?"

The man went silent and looked away. "We have made similar mistakes. There is much I've done in pursuit of my faith that I'm not particularly proud of. I may be beyond absolution."

There was a click and a sudden burst of static. Sora flinched and looked around. Drifting inside the static was a low, howling sound, growing steadily fiercer. A thud and a drawling creak snapped Sora's attention to the door by the broken piano.

The door jerked open, pushed by two large creatures. Their sloping, serpentine necks swung around wildly as they stepped into the room. They had elongated, narrow snouts baring rows of incisors, a slimy tongue lolling out between the teeth. There were no eyes, just skin stretching back over their skulls. Their bodies were emaciated and somewhat canine in build, the spinal ridge sticking through the skin. Their skin was a tallow color blotched with deep purple around their heads, feet, and tail, with striped markings staining their skin like rust. Most disturbing of all were a half dozen iron rods that had been driven clean through the monsters' skull and neck, capped with crossbars on either end. Two enormous spears stuck out from their chest and pelvis, swaying this way and that with the creatures' movements.

Sora instinctively stepped back as the monsters approached. They were making a noise in-between a throaty growl and a whispering howl, their heads swaying nauseatingly as they padded towards him. Sora kept backing into the middle of the room, the monsters slowly following. Panic was setting in as Sora looked around desperately for something to defend himself.

The man was walking calmly around the creatures to the door. "Wait! Where are you going?" Sora cried, eyeing the monsters circling around him. "I'm not finished with you yet!"

Sora thought he could hear the man chuckle. "Do you remember what I told you in the hospital?"

"Sorry, it all kind of sounds the same to me," Sora retorted. One of the creatures was drooling on his shoe.

"I look forward to seeing what path you choose!" the man called as he crossed the doorway. "Be careful not to let fear devour you."

With the cloaked man gone, the creatures were growing more aggressive. They froze on either side, blocking the way to the exit. Their muzzles rippled around their teeth. Sora held out his hands nervously. _What am I gonna do? How am I supposed to fight? _he thought frantically. As if on cue, dark smoke began to seep from his fingertips. _What? No! Not now! _Alarmed, he tried to shake the smoke off of his hands, but it only spread further up his arms. He felt his arms going numb as the smoke reached for his chest. The faster his heart beat, the faster the darkness spread, pulsing towards his feet._ Not again! Stop it! Stop! _He felt like he was floating; his vision was misting over and growing flat, as if he were seeing the world from behind glass. He watched helplessly as his body leapt towards the monsters, eliciting a howl of rage from the nearest one. The sound was garbled and hollow like a blown out speaker. He felt a crushing pressure, as if something was attempting to push him away. It would be nice to go to sleep, to forget, it whispered. He could not see anything anymore except for a dizzying swirl of color, black and brown and red. _No! Stop stop stop stop_

"STOP!"

The scream echoed around the vaulted ceiling. The static from the radio was gone. He blinked, and looked down at his hands. The darkness was gone, and they were covered in blood. He felt something warm around his feet, and realized he was bent over the corpse of one of the monsters. It was thoroughly eviscerated; its entrails pooled around his feet, blood soaking into the soles of his shoes. With a gasp, he jumped backwards, stumbled and fell. The body of the other monster was behind him. It was hacked almost to pieces; the spear that had once been in its chest was now sticking out of the side of its head, leaving a gaping hole.

Sora screamed, throwing himself away from the bodies. His shoes squeaked against the wood floor as he scrambled to stay upright. He stumbled over to a pillar and leaned against it, shaking and heaving. _What is this? What's happening to me? Did I... did I really do that? _he thought. He could not bring himself to look back; just thinking about it encouraged a fresh wave of nausea.

Sora was starting to think that everything Donald and Goofy had said about him might have been right. It used to be that he suddenly found himself with incredible power when he was upset, and since he needed it, he had not thought twice about using it. Now it seemed like that power was obtaining a life of its own beyond his emotions. _Maybe Donald's right, _Sora thought. _Maybe I _am_ a monster._

He sunk down against the pillar, pulling his shoes off and tipping them upside down. He winced as blood splattered on the floor in front of his feet. _So what do I do now? _he thought idly, pulling his shoes back on. _Am I supposed to keep going? _He glanced over at the door that the man had disappeared through. _It's not like I can go back. There's nothing to go back to. I don't have the Keyblade, or my friends... and I'm stuck with this curse. _He pulled himself to his feet and walked towards the door. _That guy must know something. There has to be something, or... or why am I here? What was all this for? _He realized the headlamp had died. He gave the battery pack a good slap and it blinked back to life. Cautiously, he stepped through the doorway.

He was in a small, windowless room. The walls were the color of old parchment, with patches of mold. The blue graffiti continued here, all in a strange language Sora could not even guess the meaning of. A corridor led away in front of him, and to his right tucked in the corner was an unusual wooden structure. It was unremarkable except for two small doors on the front. One was slightly ajar. Curious, Sora pulled the door open and peeked inside.

It was a cramped, narrow room. Like much of the rest of the building, it had apparently been vandalized; there were books littered all over the floor with their pages torn out and scribbled on. Several small paintings had been either ripped to shreds or desecrated with blue paint. The only thing that seemed to still be intact was a long, screened window in the left wall. A faint light glowed behind the screen.

Seeing nothing useful, Sora was about to leave when he heard a sound. He froze. It sounded like a hum, but as he listened, he realized it was a voice muttering and whispering. The voice was muffled, as if it came from the other side of the screen. Intrigued, Sora stepped closer.

"_... don't blame you._" the voice whispered. Its voice was choked and shaking. "_Mom... Dad... everyone... please don't hate me. I promise I'll make things right again... please don't forget about me..._"

Sora kneeled next to the screen. He felt somewhat embarrassed and knew he probably should not be listening, but something about the voice drew him in.

"_I wanted it to be just the two of us, forever... I wanted to see him just one more time and tell him I was sorry... I thought I would go to any lengths to get him back... and now, I... I can't face him... I know _he_ is there..._"

So familiar... that voice was so familiar...

"_... Please, tell me... was I wrong? What should I have done? Am I... beyond forgiveness? Just once more I... I want to see his face... Sora..._"

Sora jumped to his feet. "Riku?!" he cried. He burst out of the room. Hands shaking, he flung open the other door.

There was no one inside, just a long wooden pew, and the other side of the screen. Disappointment and confusion swept over Sora, and he slumped against the door frame. _I don't understand... Riku... what could you have done that I couldn't forgive? Where are you?_


	17. Raw Power

Sora felt utterly alone. Ever since he had started his journey from Traverse Town, he had always had someone by his side. Hearing Riku's voice, even if it seemed to come from some sort of phantom, only made him that much more keenly aware of his loneliness. Never had he felt so sharply the silence, or the void around him.

It did not help that this place was incredibly strange -- not so much by what was there, but by what was _not_. The walls were devoid of pictures or decorations of any kind. The usual debris and detritus that Sora had come to expect from an abandoned, desecrated ruin were few and far between. The rooms held very little, if any, furniture. He stepped into a completely empty room, containing nothing but several dark windows and -- of course -- himself. With a sigh, he turned away, pulling the door shut behind him.

He walked back to the first corridor and turned a corner. A grate took up most of the back wall. Sora thought he could see another hallway on the other side of it. To his left was a door; it was unlocked.

Inside was a large, vacant room with two small windows. Several chairs had been piled up against the walls. A rolling blackboard leaned against the far right wall near a door. As he approached, he realized there was something written faintly on the surface: _"Je mehr er hinauf in die Höhe und Helle will, um so stärker streben seine Wurzeln erdwärts, abwärts, in's Dunkle, Tiefe, in's Böse." _Puzzled, his eyes strayed to a piece of paper tacked to the board. It had apparently been ripped from a book. A circular, runed, red symbol was drawn on the top, with some text printed underneath. Something about the symbol looked familiar, but he could not place it. He pulled it down and read:

"Represents the deity known as 'The Halo of the Sun.' In heraldry, symbolizes a religious group.

The two outer circles are charity and resurrection; the three inner circles are present, past, and future.

Usually drawn in red. Occasionally drawn in black or other colors, but blue reverses the meaning into a curse on God and is therefore forbidden."

He stared at the symbol, a dull pain working its way across his forehead, and realized with a start that the symbol was the same one he had seen in the labyrinth on a keycard. Before he could think any further, the radio fizzed to life, emitting a hiss of static. Sora dropped the paper in surprise and spun around.

A creature pawed into the room from the door Sora had previously entered, its claws clicking against the hardwood floor. It was similar to the ones Sora had encountered in the main hall, and Sora felt a fresh wave of fear hit him at the memory. The monster's tongue swept across the floor as its head whipped around, searching for him. Slowly, Sora strafed towards the other door. He reached for the doorknob, his fingers inches from the surface.

His toe caught the leg of a chair and he stumbled. The chair collapsed onto several of its fellows with a crash. The monster's head snapped up, and it let loose a roar as it barreled towards Sora. He leapt out of the way just in time for the creature to slam into the wall. Screeching and howling, it stumbled into the blackboard. The board flipped, and the creature tumbled into the pile of chairs. In the confusion, Sora seized the doorknob and burst into the corridor, slamming the door shut behind him.

He backed away from the door. On the other side, he could hear the sound of the metal chairs shifting across the floor, and then nothing. The radio continued to emit a low hum of static. Something hit his back and he jumped, before realizing he had backed into the wall. A swirl of black flitted in front of his vision, and his heart sank as he realized that black smoke was crawling up his arm. _No! _He started to run, but quickly realized there was nothing in this direction but the metal grating from before, and another door. Scratching sounds were echoing down the hall. Panicked, he opened the door and leapt inside, slamming the door and leaning against it. He turned his head to get a look at the small room he had entered. Like many of the others, it was sparsely furnished and bare. He ran up to a bookcase and, with a heave, threw it onto its side. It slammed into a bed frame, books tumbling to the floor. Ignoring the noise, Sora kicked the bookcase as hard as he could towards the door, blocking it. For a moment he stared at the door, panting, the radio continuing to hiss softly in protest.

Sora glanced down at the smoke on his arm. _Calm... I have to calm down_, he thought, clenching his fist. There was a desk against the back wall; he climbed on top of it, hugging his knees to his chest. The room went dark as the headlight was pressed to his chest. He could feel his heart beating against his kneecaps. His breath rattled past his teeth in bursts, and he tried to focus on the sensation of air going in and out of his lungs, to force himself to breathe slower and deeper. _Calm... calm... _he thought, but he continued to stare rigidly at the door, somewhere in front of him in the darkness.

He strained to hear the scrape of claws in the hallway. There was nothing but the hiss of static and his heart hammering in his ears. One minute, two minutes, five minutes... he was not sure how much time was passing as he sat in the dark. His concentration on staying calm was now just a numb jumble of thoughts that meant nothing. Still, he could feel the stinging heat around his arm beginning to subside. Vaguely he wondered how he was going to get the bookcase away from the door.

_WHAM_. Sora nearly jumped out of his skin as something hit the door with brute force. He could hear the creature howling on the other side, and as he scrambled to stay on top of the desk, it hit the door again. Claws scratched frantically at the edge of the door, and he could hear the creature snuffling at the crack. It growled and lunged at the door again. The bookcase screeched as it was thrown forward an inch from the impact.

Sora's mind was awash with terror. He was trapped, with nowhere to go and nothing to defend himself. He could already feel a familiar sting rippling up his arm to his chest, circling around his heart. The creature hit the door again and its hinges squealed, the door bowing and splintering. The bookcase edged further, and Sora could see the creature's muzzle press into the space between the door and the frame, its tongue flicking at the wall.

Sora could feel himself fading. Sound dropped away, and he watched in deaf detachment as the door burst from its hinges. The monster clambered over the door onto the bookcase. It appeared to move in slow motion as it leapt towards him. The room tilted, and he realized he was falling.

He ducked for the floor, hitting it just as the monster soared over his head onto the desk. Its tail whipped around and knocked him off his feet. Sound and time ripped back into his consciousness as the creature screamed into his ear, reaching for him. Like a shot he took off over the wreckage of the bookcase and door, tumbling into the hallway. He could hear the monster's raging howls as he ran full speed down the hall. The hallway ended in a turn, and he threw himself into a dead end. Spotting a pair of double doors to his right, he tried the handles and -- to his immense relief -- pushed them open and ran inside.

He was standing inside a hexagonal room. Tall, narrow windows were set into each angle. The remaining walls were bare, except for a few enormous, blank picture frames. Four pillars stood in a square around the middle of the room. As he looked down, he realized he was standing on top of a huge symbol -- the same one he saw on the paper. It was painted in blue.

As he stood staring down at the symbol, he began to hear the familiar wail of a siren. He slammed his hands over his ears. It was incredibly loud, and as he looked up, he realized it was coming from somewhere in the vaulted ceiling above his head. Dust was raining down from the ceiling as the walls began to shake and the windows rattled. Through the sirens he could hear wind howling from outside the stained glass. The windows shook violently, and the glass shattered. Sora covered his face as the windows exploded around him. He could feel the wind whipping around him, as if he were standing in the middle of a tornado.

As he lowered his arms, he realized he was staring at a broad, bare chest. A fan whirred inside a gaping hole in its breast. As he looked up, he saw the sharp silhouette of a helmet. Gaping, he stepped backwards. It looked very similar to the other Pyramid monsters he had encountered, but its size was immense. Its muscles rippled as it clutched an iron spear, easily long enough to gore Sora from head to toe. The spindly iron of its helmet was crudely fashioned to look somewhat like a beast's snarling jaws, and the cloth around its waist was thick and billowing, like a ship's sails. He heard a snarl behind him, and realized that three of the reptilian monsters had blocked off the doorway. Together, the creatures encircled the space around the pillars, trapping him in the middle of the room.

Sora's heart raced as he ran through his extremely limited options, eyeing the jagged tip of the Pyramid monster's spear. For a moment he seriously considered making a break for one of the windows and jumping, but the twisted skeletal frames left by the stained glass blocked the way. It took only seconds to realize that there was no way out, and nothing he could do. The creatures tensed around him and the Pyramid monster lifted its spear into the air. Sora dropped to his knees and flung his arms over his head in desperation, clenching his eyes shut.

Time slowed. A blue light stung his eyelids; he opened his eyes and realized the runes beneath him were glowing. With a force like an explosion, black fire burst from the circles around him. Sora hardly had time to react before the flames whirled around his body. He watched in horrified fascination as his skin burned away, leaving behind a swirling, consuming black smoke. As he rose unsteadily to his feet, darkness shrouded his eyes. He caught a glimpse of the creatures backing against the wall as wind spun like a cyclone around him, before his vision darkened completely. The sensation of his body moving, the roar of the wind, fell away as the smoke covered his chest above his heart. He was sinking, falling into nothingness, into silence.

He was drifting in a featureless void. He could not sense time or space. It was not hot or cold, bright or dark... it was everything, and nothing at the same time. He felt nothing, because there was nothing remarkable to feel. If it could be said there was a floor, he might be lying on it -- he could not tell if any direction was up or down. He curled up, holding his hands in front of his face. He felt torn between recognition and confusion. _What happened to me? _he thought, but even the thought did not seem to have any particular meaning, and it dissipated unanswered.

Footsteps echoed around him. There was no fear or curiosity about the sound -- it was just a noise, a sensation. He imagined he could see feet somewhere in front of his eyes. Someone was kneeling in front of him.

_"Sora? What are you doing here?" _a voice whispered above him.

_'Sora'? That's right... I'm Sora. _Sora tried to look up, but his head did not move. "Leave me alone," he muttered, covering his face with his arms. "I'm hiding."

_"Hiding? Why? From what?"_

"From the darkness. From the bad things."

He heard clothing shifting as the someone sat down._ "Sora. You need to wake up."_

"No. I... I'm scared."

"_There's nothing to be afraid of. Please wake up. Wake up._"

He felt something take his hand. His eyes peeked open, and he thought he saw blue eyes looking back at him. The longer he stared, the darker they became, until he realized it was not eyes he was looking at, but circles -- blue circles painted on the ground. Sora blinked and looked around.

He was lying alone in the middle of the hexagonal room. The air was still and quiet. Glass shards were scattered around the floor from the broken windows. He felt a sting on his cheek and lifted his head, fragments of glass falling to the floor. Sora sat up, brushing the glass from his arm, and his eyes strayed to the walls.

The mold and dirt that had previously littered the walls were peeling off before his eyes. The paint, the wall itself seemed to be burning without flames, leaving behind a vast, gray plane -- a colorless, featureless imitation of what had once been there. As he twisted around, he saw gray lines stretching slowly across the walls, scratching away. By now Sora was used to (if not altogether comfortable with) seeing bizarre transformations of already run-down locations into even more decrepit, hellish surroundings. It did not look as if the walls around him were decaying or morphing. It was almost as if the environment was reversing through time, the decay and effects of time melting away; it would be more accurate to say that any remarkable or identifying features were simply being erased. He watched as splashes and smears of dark blood on the walls and floor cracked and flaked off, vanishing into the air like embers of burning paper.

Unsettled, Sora pushed himself to his feet. Before he could think of what to do next, a burst of static rent the air. Immediately his pulse shot up, and he whipped around, looking for a hint of movement. As he searched he realized that there was something unusual about the sounds coming from the radio. Instead of the usual assortment of clanks and growls that heralded the arrival of a monster, there was something garbled up in the static. Sora thought he could hear a whisper over the beating of his heart, and as he listened, the whisper formed into discernible speech.

"_--S--ra--- So-----a,_" hissed a voice through the static.

Sora ripped the radio off his belt and fumbled with the buttons, trying to remember which did what. He tried pressing the biggest one. "H-hello?" he said into the speaker. "Chip? Dale? Is that you?!" He let go of the button and fiddled with the knob. The static grew louder, and began to soften as the signal became stronger.

"_I----who----talking about_," the voice responded. It was still too garbled to be recognizable.

Sora blinked in confusion at the receiver in his hand. "Huh? Hello?! Wait, who is this?"

There was a pause. The static softened more, becoming a dull white noise. "I... I don't know. I don't remember," the voice replied, clearer now that the static had died down. It sounded somewhat masculine, but that was all Sora could figure out. There was something familiar about the voice even if he was sure he had not heard it before.

_Huh? What's going on here? Who is this? _Sora thought, puzzled. The radio had not worked properly once since he received it from Chip and Dale. "What do you mean you don't remember? How are you talking to me? Are you at the ship? What happened to the others?!" he blurted out.

"I don't know... I'm just... talking. I don't know anything about a ship or anyone else," the voice responded.

This did not really answer any of Sora's questions, and he frowned at the radio. "Where are you? Are you in Silent Hill, too?"

At this the voice was quiet and did not respond. Sora let out a deep sigh. _Great... a disembodied voice that doesn't know anything. At least I'm not alone anymore... I guess. _Sora clipped the radio back on his belt, and walked to the doors. They had been nearly ripped apart, riddled with gashes from claws, as if something had been scrambling to get out. Feeling dizzy, he pushed the doors aside and peered into the hall.

The invisible fire was burning through the short corridor and around the corner. Paint bubbled and peeled towards the ceiling and disappeared. The color was being soaked out of the wood grain in the floors. As Sora stepped into the corridor, the dark gray lines in the wood twisted and waved, giving the illusion that the floor was tilting. He swayed, holding out a hand to brace himself against the wall as the lines retreated away from him and around the corner. Against his better judgment, he followed.

The corridor stretching in front of him was going through the same metamorphosis. The lines of the wood grain zig-zagged and wove together, and sped towards him. He scrambled to get back before realizing that they were not headed towards him, but making a sharp left towards a spot on the wall. As he cautiously approached the spot, the darker lines reached up the wall and began to weave together, forming the rough outline of a small doorway. Sora placed his hands on the wall, and felt it move slightly.

"_Don't!_" the voice suddenly shouted from the radio.

Sora nearly fell over in shock. He had been so absorbed in what was going on around him that he forgot about the strange voice in the radio. He fumbled for the speaker button. "What?! What do you mean, 'don't'?" he said, clutching his chest.

"Don't go in there!"

Sora straightened up. "Why not? Wait-- how do you know what I'm looking at?"

"I don't need to see it. I just know," the voice retorted.

_Okay, getting creepier_, he thought, feeling haunted, as if he were being watched. Sora looked around, but did not see anyone in the hallway but himself. "Well whatever's in there, I'm going to check it out, unless you have a better idea," he said, pushing on the wall. The wall split seamlessly around the edges of the lines, dust raining down on his hands as the door swung forward.


	18. Drops of Silence

**WARNING: The following chapters contain spoilers for key scenes and plot pointsfor Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days. **

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* * *

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On the other side of the door was a short corridor. Here, the walls crumbled down on either side of him, leaving behind a floating walkway suspended by a skeletal frame. On either side was nothing but darkness stretching infinitely, and in front of him was a massive wall stretching beyond his sight in any direction, and a door. For a moment the sheer impossibility of the sights around him jammed any rational thought.

"I think it started out like this," the voice in the radio said softly. "Floating in nothing, being nothing."

Unsure what to make of this statement, Sora did not respond. Feeling nervous about the fate of the floor beneath him, he hurried across the walkway to the door. It was unlocked, and he flung it open and stepped through the doorway.

He was standing on a catwalk on the side of a massive canyon. The walls closest to him were a pale gray, filled with geometric patterns. The wall across the void looked like a mish-mash of buildings jammed together. Windows and signs smashed into each other. An enormous clock tower leaned at a precarious angle away from the wall, the hands of the clock face missing. Nothing seemed to fit together. He leaned just enough away from the wall to confirm that there was no bottom or ceiling, and no end to the walls stretching in either direction. The catwalk continued a ways to his right, turning to follow an extension of the wall. There were several closed doors. Eager for some more enclosed space, he approached the closest one.

"There's nothing behind that door," the voice remarked.

"How could you know?" Sora retorted. He turned the doorknob and it swung forward. He had almost stepped inside when he realized that the darkness was actually a sheer drop, and he leaned back and slammed the door.

"Told you."

"Yeah, okay, okay!" Sora dismissed, feeling slightly sheepish. He continued trying the doors, all of which opened up onto nothing. As he checked the last door, he realized that there was a hole like a tunnel in the wall beside it, close to the floor. Dropping to his hands and knees, he climbed into the tunnel and crawled through.

There was something cold and damp beneath his hands. He looked down and realized he was touching dirt and grass. He stood up, brushing the dirt off his hands, and looked around.

He was standing in a light forest. If he did not know better he would have thought he was suddenly outside, but as he craned his neck up, he saw that the tops of the trees had been ripped away, and could just make out a rough ceiling. Bewildered, he walked forward through the trees. A familiar nagging was tugging at his brain; he knew he had been here before.

The trees fell away, and he was standing at the edge of a wide grassy clearing. On either side was a short wall, and beyond those, more trees. As he walked into the clearing, the light of the headlamp settled on a brick wall and a towering black gate. Beyond the gate he thought he could just make out the silhouette of a building.

"This is... this is in Twilight Town, isn't it?" Sora thought aloud. "What... why is this here?"

"... I was born here," the voice said quietly.

"Huh? You were?" Sora replied, not really paying attention as he continued to look around. The place looked much as he remembered it, but something about it was a little off. The colors were dull even in the light. Details that appeared vivid at first glance were washed out or disappeared altogether upon closer inspection.

"I don't... remember it very well..." the voice continued. "I felt there was something I had to find... and someone appeared... he showed me a name, and gave me one of my own."

"So? What was it?" Sora asked, feeling he already knew the answer.

"I can't remember. But... I do remember the name he showed me."

Sora glanced down at the radio.

"It was... Sora. That's you, isn't it? Sora?"

Sora felt like he had been plunged into ice water. _What is going on here? Just who is this guy? Is this some kind of joke? _he thought. There was not much he found funny about any of this, so if it was a joke, it was definitely one of the worst he had heard. He was tempted to take the radio off and leave it, but just the thought of losing the radio made him feel vulnerable. "How... how do you know that?"

"I know because I remember you. I remember your voice. You're the only thing in my memories, but I know they aren't mine. Why?"

Sora did not feel like he could even begin to answer this. It made no sense. How could anyone else have his memories? How could someone remember him if he had never met them before?

Sora's head was spinning. He turned to walk back to the forest and felt something light hit his shoe. Curious, he stooped down and spotted something in the grass. He picked it up and held it up to the light. It was a child's wooden building block, printed with a letter of the alphabet on either side. "R" was printed inside a blue box. It was scratched and the paint was fading with age. It looked to him like a useless piece of junk, but he found himself pocketing it anyway, if only because it seemed so out of place.

* * *

Back outside, Sora discovered a caged-off indentation in the side of the canyon. It was an elevator. He just managed to pry open the door enough to squeeze inside. The second he stepped foot inside, the floor beneath his feet lurched and began to gradually fall. He watched the gray patterns on the wall scroll by as another catwalk emerged from the darkness below him. As it neared the exit, he realized the lift was not slowing down; he jumped for the grating and grabbed hold as the floor continued to fall. Clinging to the doors for dear life, he pried them open and slipped past, the doors closing after him with a clang. He peered over the edge, but the lift was gone. He turned to inspect this new level.

To his right was a series of six doors stretching out along the wall. As he approached them, he realized they were all sealed off, no more than impressions in the wall. He turned back towards the lift and came upon a perfectly rectangular hallway tunneling into the wall. He began to walk down the hall, and as he walked, he felt sand crunch underneath his shoes. The faint sound of waves lapping at a shore echoed from somewhere outside the walls. He turned a corner and found himself in front of a door. Sora grabbed the knob and pushed, but the door was heavy, and his feet slid under him as he pushed against the door with his shoulder. Slowly, the door swung open, and Sora stepped inside.

The faint light of the headlamp dropped away into the empty space in front of him. He could see that the walls curved away from him on either side in a wide arc. The cone of light just barely touched on large, dark shapes encircling the center of the room. As he walked towards them, he craned his head up, and realized they were tall white towers, like massive thrones. Only a few were still standing; the others were smashed and toppled over, their ruins scattered around the room, leaving only fragments of what had once been behind. He stopped in the middle of the room, spinning around to get a better look. The air here felt very heavy, and the silhouettes of the ruins in the silence made him feel like he was standing in a graveyard. Unlike the previous room, nothing about this place felt familiar.

"Do you know where we are?" he asked into the radio. He flinched at how loud his voice sounded, echoing around him.

There was a pause where Sora could only hear the hum of white noise. "It's... the Round Room," the voice responded.

"'The Round Room'? Not terribly original," Sora snorted.

"It's... where we used to meet."

"'We'? Who's we?"

"Look down."

Sora looked down at his feet. He was standing in the middle of an enormous symbol. He jumped back to get a better look. It appeared to be a mix between an upside-down heart and a cross. He had seen this symbol many times -- printed on Nobodies.

"The Organization?! Wait... you... were you a member of the Organization?" Sora blurted out incredulously.

"... I was, I think, at some point."

"So you're a Nobody?"

"A Nobody...?" the voice repeated faintly.

Sora wandered over to one of the thrones that was still standing. It was so pockmarked and brittle, it looked as if one push could send it toppling over with the rest. "Yeah, you know... a being without a heart," he explained.

"I... guess so. How do you know if you don't have a heart?"

Sora found a chunk of debris small enough to sit on and did so. His legs ached in protest, and his head throbbed; he realized it had been ages since he had last taken a real rest. As he settled, he wrestled with the question. "Well, uh... I don't know... I guess you don't feel anything. You know, happy, sad... angry."

"Oh... so a heart is feelings?"

Sora leaned back against the stone with his arms behind his head. "Uh... sorta... it's a little more complicated than that."

"... if you don't know what a heart is, then how do you know you have one?"

Sora stared up into the darkness above him. "I don't know, it's just... there..." Fatigue was weighing on his mind and clouding his thoughts. He felt a heaviness settling on his chest and his eyes. What was a heart, anyway? What was it made of? He did not want to have this conversation anymore... did not want to think anymore... his eyelids drooped, the white noise of the radio swirled through his mind like snow.

_He was scuttling along just inches from the ground. The world spun around him in a jagged blur of color. Instinct was driving his hands and feet forward; he was frantically searching for something. He had to find it, had to get it back, had to keep looking... _

_"... really are messed up, huh?"_

_He was looking up at the face of a tall, lanky man with wild red hair -- Axel. The scene had changed; he was in Twilight Town. They were fighting alongside each other, defeating Heartless. The battles went by in a haze, and they were sitting on top of a clock tower overlooking the town. He looked down at his hand and saw a popsicle melting onto his gloved fingertips, glinting in the sunset. _

_"... after our next mission, let's eat ice cream here again," Axel said._

_His sight blurred, and he was staring at a man with tousled pink hair. "Collecting hearts is a special thing that can only be done by the Keyblade you hold," the man was saying._

_He looked down at the blade in his hand. "Special..." Sound and sight warped, and he found himself asking, "Are there other Keyblade wielders?"_

_He looked up and the man with pink hair was gone, replaced with a woman with swept-back blonde hair and a ill-tempered look. "That's got nothing to do with you!" she snapped. "You just worry about defeating Heartless and collecting hearts for us." _

_Confusion and frustration distorted his vision. "What does it mean to join with Kingdom Hearts and become complete?" _

_He was staring at someone different this time, a bulky man with tanned skin and a chiseled face. He was staring back at him with a dark, piercing gaze. "... it means that we get hearts," he answered bluntly._

_"'Get hearts'...?" _

_"... if the time comes, you'll understand."_

_"For the sake of the Organization..."_

_"... A new member has joined us." _

_He was sitting on a tall throne in a bright, circular room, looking down at the floor. A small figure in a black cloak was walking towards the middle of the room. As it reached the middle, it turned its head to look up at him. _

Sora startled awake, sitting up. Looking around, he saw that he was in the same circular room._ I must have dozed off... was that a dream? _he thought. He sighed and looked down at his clenched hand. Something was poking the inside of his palm. He opened his hand and saw a small piece of rough, carved stone. It was shaped like an S. He held it up to the light. _What, where did this come from? Did I pick it up before I fell asleep? _Shrugging, he stuffed it in his pocket and got to his feet, legs shaking a bit from the strain. He raised his arms and stretched. He could feel fragments of the dream fading as he became more and more alert. _Those people... who were they? Members of the Organization? _he wondered idly. Except for Axel, none of them looked familiar. He realized that though it was called Organization XIII, he had never actually seen all thirteen members together at once. _Maybe there were never thirteen to begin with, _he snickered to himself.

A tiny piece of stone clattered across the floor at his feet. He glanced down at the twitching stone, then looked up in the direction it came from. The light did not reach far enough to illuminate anything except the silhouettes of the ruins. "H-hello?" he called, the sound echoing off the walls. "Is someone there?" He could hear something screeching against the floor. He squinted, and saw a dark shape moving behind the pillars. It stepped towards the edge of the light.

It was human-shaped, just about the same height as himself. Its face was blocked off by a small, boxy helm with slats on the front. Its skin was a dark, reddish color, and was cracked and parched. All across its body were deep gashes, which glowed a molten orange, as if it were on fire beneath its skin. Where its hands should have been were instead long, curving blades. The blades were scraping against the ground as it stepped towards the light and regarded him.

Sora stepped back. _A Nobody?! But... why didn't the radio make any sound?_ he thought. The creature raised its blades, starting towards him.

"Run!" the voice from the radio barked, knocking Sora out of his frozen stare.

He did not need to be told twice. He turned and ran for the door. He tried to pull it shut behind him, but it was simply too heavy; he gave up and continued to run down the corridor. He turned the corner and skidded to a halt.

The catwalk was crawling with Nightmare Shadows. They climbed across the walls, writhing and falling over one another in their confusion. One caught sight of him and leapt towards him, and he instinctively tried to kick it away. His foot caught its chest, and it flew over the edge of the catwalk. The movement caught the attention of the rest, and they all turned towards him.

He took a step back. "What now?!" he cried into the radio.

"Behind you!" the voice yelled.

Sora looked behind him just in time to see the Nobody swing one of its swords at him. He tried to jump away, but was not fast enough; he felt something cold sting across his back, and he fell to the floor. The Nobody stood above him, blood staining its sword, and the Heartless hissed and spit at each other as they fought to reach him. Sora ducked for a space by the Nobody's feet as it made another swipe at him, and ran back down the hallway. As he ran, he saw a corridor emerge that he had not noticed before; with no other option, he skidded and ran down the corridor. He slammed into a door at the end. He grabbed the doorknob, feeling it turn under his hand. He leaned against it and the door swung open. He tumbled into the room, kicking the door closed behind him. Catching sight of the first piece of furniture he could find -- a night stand -- he grabbed it and wedged it under the door knob. He backed up and hit something solid, falling backwards onto something soft -- a bed. He glanced around the room he had just entered.

It was a small, plain gray room with a tall ceiling. It was sparsely furnished, most of the space being taken up by the bed. On the wall behind him was a tall window, but it was too dark to see out of. The walls were pockmarked with exposed pipes and wires.

Something was burning on his back. He reached his hand around to touch it, wincing, and pulled it back; blood dripped from his fingertips. Now that the adrenaline was subsiding, the pain of the wound was hitting him. His head felt light and his vision was full of dark blotches. He struggled to push himself up, but a sharp pain in his back ripped into him, and he fell back against the bed, panting. He used the last of his energy to pull his legs up onto the bed and collapsed, staring at the door. The noise of the creatures hissing and screeching on the other side was falling away. He could not tell if they were going away, or if he was slipping away; he could barely see. There was a roaring in his ears, and he felt his head slump as his vision went dark.


	19. The Suicidal Clock Chime

_"You're going away?"_

_He was sitting on top of the clock tower with Axel. Axel gave him an apologetic look, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, it's just for a little while," he explained. "Saïx's orders." _

_He stared down at his hands. He felt something hit his back and looked up to see Axel grinning. _

_"What's with that face again? Come on, cheer up!" _

_He gazed blankly at Axel, and tried to imitate the turns of his mouth. Axel laughed. "Yeah, you're getting better!" _

_"Where are you going?" he asked. _

_Axel's laughter faded. "Castle Oblivion." _

_The scene tilted and fell away, and he was walking into a large, gray room. The back wall was lined with floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out onto a swirling black mist. He approached a trio of men in black cloaks, huddled together and talking excitedly. One had blue hair and a scar on his face -- Saïx. Another had long black and gray hair pulled back into a ponytail, and the last was wiry with cropped, spiky blonde hair. They quieted down as he approached. The blonde excused himself and took off. _

_"What happened?" he asked, glancing at each of them._

_"It's none of your business," Saïx replied coldly. _

_The man with the ponytail eyed Saïx and looked down at him. "The members at Castle Oblivion were annihilated," he said. Saïx shot him an icy look. _

_He stared up at the two of them in shock. "Huh?! ... What about Axel?" _

_The man shook his head and shrugged. The scenery shifted, and they were standing in the shadow of tall adobe buildings. He was staring down at the sand beneath his feet. "Is everyone going to disappear?" he asked, looking up at the man. _

_He shifted uncomfortably. "Who knows?" he replied nervously. _

_Disappear... the world around him was fading away. He thought he could see figures roaming around in the darkness, staying just far enough away to keep out of sight. He chased after them, but no matter how how fast or how hard he ran, he did not seem to get any closer. He thought he could hear muffled voices speaking around him. He shouted and screamed, but his voice did not reach through the darkness. He began to wander around aimlessly, as time stretched on and on. _

_Light burst into his eyes, and he was lying on his back, staring up at a gray ceiling. He sat up and saw a colorful array of seashells lying next to his pillow. _

_The seashells became the blues and golds of the town beneath his feet as he sat on the edge of the clock tower. He looked up at someone standing behind him, but their face was distorted and blurred. "What happened to me?" he asked._

_"You were sleeping," a girl's voice replied. "You've been out for almost a month." _

_The scene shifted, and he was standing next to Axel. "What happened to the others at Castle Oblivion?" he asked. _

_Axel swung a chakram up on his shoulder and leaned against it, looking away. "They were traitors," he answered vaguely._

_"Huh? But--"_

_"Hey, come on. You've got nothing to worry about."_

_Axel ran out of sight, and as he turned his head, the scene changed, and he was standing in a dark city with the girl in the black coat. Her hood was drawn up so he could not see her face. "You don't remember being human either, do you?" she said. "But I don't remember being born, either. _

_"I can't use the Keyblade anymore. Why? What will happen to me if it doesn't come back? Am I worthless? _

_"What if I was never human in the first place?" _

_She turned towards him and began to fall. Just before she hit the ground, it became a bed. He stood in a small gray room staring down at her, and looked down at his hand. Something was clenched in his fist. He relaxed his hand and colorful seashells fell beside her pillow and onto the floor, shattering. _

Sora's eyes flew open. He was staring at a large black window in a dimly lit wall. Disoriented, he pushed himself up, blinking. _What happened? Where am I? _he thought as he glanced around. He stared in confusion at a nightstand wedged in front of the door, and memories trickled back to him. _That's right... I was running... I got hurt, I was bleeding... I must have passed out. I thought I was a goner for sure. _He sighed with relief. With a jolt, he realized he was not feeling any pain. He reached around to touch his back, but could not find the wound -- just the tattered edges of fabric where the sword had ripped through his shirt.

"What...?" he wondered aloud. He looked around the room, even leaned down to peer under the bed, but did not see anyone. "Who did this...?"

The radio fizzed and crackled. "You're awake now?" the voice remarked.

Sora pushed himself back up, still puzzled. "Yeah... hey, you didn't fix my back, did you?"

"Huh? How could I do that?"

Sora crossed his arms. "I don't know, who else could it be?"

"You were hurt? Is that why you were sleeping for so long?"

"Well, I've been having these dreams..."

"Dreams?"

Sora swung his legs over the side of the bed, stretching, reveling in the sensation of moving without pain. "Yeah, about being in the Organization... pretty weird, huh?" he chuckled.

"Yeah... weird..." the voice replied unenthusiastically.

He could not remember much of the dream anymore, but the girl collapsing stayed vivid in his mind. "Was there a girl in the Organization?" he found himself asking.

There was a pause of white noise. "... Larxene?" the voice suggested. "What did she look like?"

"Uh, she was kind of small... I didn't see her face," Sora admitted.

Another pause. "She was... the 14th member. She had a Keyblade, just like me."

"'The 14th'? Wait, you can use a Keyblade?"

"Yeah."

Sora shook his head. "A Keyblade can only be wielded by someone with a heart! You're Nobodies, how could you use one?"

The voice was silent. Sora stared down at the radio indignantly, waiting for an answer. Finally, the voice spoke. "Sora, can you wield a Keyblade?"

"Of course!" he retorted automatically. He held out his hand, and faltered; slowly, he dropped his hand to his side. "Well I... did, once..." It felt like ages since he last felt a Keyblade in his hands. At the back of his mind he began to wonder if he ever would again. For a moment he could hear the girl from his dream speaking. "_What will happen to me if it doesn't come back? Am I worthless?"_

"... Sora?"

Sora blinked. "Huh? Oh... anyway, I'm going to see if the coast is clear," he said. As he moved to get up from the bed, he felt something cold brush his hand and clatter to the floor. He kneeled down and picked it up, holding it in the palm of his hand to the light.

It was a seashell. Its iridescent curves reflected a rainbow of colors in the light. He remembered seeing many shells like this on Destiny Island. _What is it doing here? _he wondered. He turned it around and saw that someone had carved a small 'A' on the back side. Without knowing why, he held the opening up to his ear, listening. The space inside magnified and hollowed the white noise of the radio. The ebb and flow of the static sounded just like waves on a beach.

* * *

The door creaked open in the still air. Sora peered through the crack into the hallway. He could not see anything but gray walls. He leaned against the door, slowly widening the crack, craning his neck to try and get a better look.

"What are you doing?"

Startled, Sora fell forward against the door and rolled into the hall. He scrambled to his feet, but there was no one around to witness this blunder. "_Shh!_" he hissed at the radio, getting to his feet. "I told you! I was checking to see if the coast was clear!"

"Oh yeah, right," the voice admitted.

Sora began to walk cautiously down the corridor, hugging the wall. "I think those things are gone," he whispered.

"Doubt it."

The corridor fell away, and he could feel empty space around him again. He looked to his right along the catwalk, and saw that the doors that had previously been there were gone. Instead, he could see a massive dark shape leaning out of the wall. Staring at it, he realized it was the clock tower he had seen on the other side of the canyon. "How did this get over here?" he wondered aloud.

"You mean how did _we _get over here," the voice corrected.

Sora gazed across the abyss below them towards where he thought the other side of the canyon should be. Either the walls had somehow moved further away, or the light just was not reaching as far as it had; he could barely make out the catwalk where they had once been. He thought he could see the darkness shifting across the wall, obscuring and revealing its features. He squinted, and could just make out pricks of red light scattered through the darkness. With a jolt he realized that the pricks were eyes -- eyes of thousands of Nightmare Shadows. He could hear them hissing, spitting, and screeching at one another from across the canyon.

Horrified, he threw himself back against the wall, as far away from the edge as possible. Although he knew it should not be possible for the Heartless to leap across the canyon, he also did not know how he had gotten here, either. He looked around for somewhere to hide or escape, and found himself looking at the silhouette of the clock tower. He ran towards it, and as he got closer to the tower, a door emerged from the darkness. It was unlocked. He pushed it open and ducked inside.

There was nothing in front of him but stairs, wrapping around out of his sight. He started to climb as fast as he could. No matter how fast he ran or how high he climbed, all he could see were stairs in front of him and stairs above him. Sora felt his muscles burning as they struggled to keep pushing him upwards. He felt dizzy, and his ears were ringing so loudly he could barely hear his feet hitting the stairs. In the shrill tone he began to hear muffled voices all speaking at once in an unintelligible babble. As he pressed on further, the voices separated, and he caught snippets of them as if passing at high speed.

_"This Keyblade is a fake--"_

_"-- a girl who looks like me--"_

_"-- I can't go away right now--"_

_"-- to where you belong--"_

_"-- will it take for me to be like you?"_

Sora clapped his hands over his ears. The ringing and the voices were getting louder, making his head pound with the rhythm of his feet.

_"I can't go back--"_

_"Stop it!"_

_"-- to go back to where I belong--"_

_"-- just keep running--"_

_"-- there to bring you back!" _

The stairs suddenly ended, and Sora nearly fell over. He stopped just in time to keep from running off the edge of the tower. He walked around the corner to the front. The light of the headlamp fell away into the darkness below him, and above him, he could just barely make out the top of the tower. The floor was tilted, enough that he had to lean backwards to keep from falling.

On either side of him he could hear a sharp scraping, gradually getting closer. He looked to the left and right in time to see the monsters with swords coming around the corners. On such a narrow ledge, they quickly sealed any escape.

Sora looked back and forth at the approaching monsters. He looked up and saw that Nightmare Shadows were crawling down from the top of the tower towards him. _Where do I go? What do I do?_ he thought frantically. He glanced down at the edge beside his feet, and the blackness on the other side of it. The screeching tone in his ears was getting louder. He saw something flash out of the corner of his eyes, and looked up to the helmet of the creature directly in front of him.

_"-- you're late." _

Sora stepped aside to avoid the monster's swing, but his foot hit empty air. He windmilled for a moment, trying to regain his balance, but he tumbled backwards over the edge of the tower. The ledge shot up away from him, and the wind screamed in his ears. He screamed, but the sound was lost in the wind. The light from the headlamp reflected nothing but darkness.

_"-- do you know why the sun sets red?"_

He clenched his eyes shut. The light below his chin made the back of his eyelids glow.

_"-- light us made up of lots of colors, and out of all those colors, red is the one that travels the farthest." _

_He was sitting on top of the clock tower, looking up at a small, cloaked figure silhouetted against the setting sun. It reached up to remove its hood. He could barely see the outline of the face in the glare. _

_"-- who do you see?" _

_His eyes began to adjust to the light, and he could see blue eyes -- his own face looking back down at him. _

_"-- this is him." _

_Before he could process this, the figure replaced its hood and walked straight out onto thin air, black smoke curling around it. Suddenly, they were both falling -- they were at the bottom of the tower, and a girl with black hair fell to her knees. The girl collapsed and he kneeled beside her, holding her up. Shards of white light like ice were forming around her, breaking apart and sparkling into the air. _

_"-- I am going back... to be with him," the girl said. _

_The image was snowy and popping, the voice warped and distorted. The ice was climbing up her legs. "All those hearts that I've captured -- set them free --" _

_"You're both -- my best friends -- never forget --" _

_Her hand fell from the side of his face, and she was consumed with ice. It glowed in the sunlight and broke apart, quietly shattering and disintegrating, leaving his arms empty. A single seashell glittered on the brick, a colorful chip of blues and purples and yellows flowing into each other. He clasped it in his hand. _

_"Xion..."_

_He blinked, _and Sora's eyes fluttered open. He was staring out across a vertical horizon of adobe bricks, fading into black as they stretched away from the light. Sora pushed himself upright, looking around.

He was sitting on a platform at the bottom of the clock tower. To his right was a wide set of steps and tall glass doors, and above that, the tower stretching up into the darkness. Through the haze of dreams he could remember the sensation of falling, the face of a clock blurring by him. _How could I fall that far and still be alive? Did I... really fall? But then how did I get down here? _

Sora checked himself over, but with the exception of the accumulated wear and tear of his journey, he was unscathed. His chest felt tight and his face cold; he rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand and felt the tracks of tears running down his face. _Huh? _He tried to wipe away the tears, sniffing. _Was I crying in my sleep or something? Pull it together, Sora! _He felt there was something important about this, something he was forgetting, but it was slipping away before he could even start to consider it.

He saw something glisten out of the corner of his eye and blinked. Shifting his knee, he saw a small seashell lying on the brick. _Hey, this is... _Sora picked it up and held it to the light. It looked like it had been crushed. He looked around, patting the ground, but could not find any other pieces. Turning it around, he saw a crack like a ring. For a moment he thought about tossing it aside, but the movement to throw it turned into pocketing it.

There was a loud thump, and his head whipped around to the glass doors. Through the glass, he could see the dark shapes of Nightmare Shadows writhing. They were sliding against the glass, clawing at the cracks, trying to force it open. He could see the black slime they spat burning into the glass. Sora jumped to his feet and looked for somewhere to run. The platform sheered away on almost every side, dropping away into nothingness. He could just make out a large opening in the side of the canyon and sprinted for it. The floor sloped down to the left and he followed, each ramp connecting to another. It felt like running up the stairs in the tower, but this time he was almost falling, the ramps taking him deeper and deeper. The walls narrowed as he ran and lost their color, until he was standing in a plain, gray hallway. At the end was a door with a small red light above it. The light of the headlamp dimmed and died, plunging him into darkness, the light above the door glowing like a single red eye. He walked towards it, and saw a panel beside the door emerge from the dark. He reached out to touch it and hesitated, his stomach knotting. A sense of foreboding was urging him to turn and run. He stood frozen, glancing up at the red light.

Behind him, he could hear the distant sound of growls and snarls, and feet slapping against brick. Tearing his eyes away from the light, he slammed his fist against the panel, and the door slid open into the wall. He jumped inside just as the door slid back into place, and the light blinked out.


	20. True

Sora found himself in a small, dark room. Almost every inch of the walls was taken up by sprawling computer equipment. The air was heavy and warm from the running machinery, humming and whirring softly. His skin glowed pale in the light from the monitors as he approached. _What is all this stuff? _he thought; he could not make heads or tails of any of it. He thought better of touching any of the keys or buttons; instead, he found himself drawn to the monitors. Numbers, letters, and windows were flashing across the screens. Stringing together snippets of words and images, he realized it was all data about himself. Against better judgment, he found a keyboard and hit some keys, trying to make the images slow down. He heard a sharp beep and the roar of fans as the drives spun. The monitors were flashing between black and blue. Alarmed, he hit more keys, eliciting more warning tones and flashes. A few panels sparked, and the monitors snowed with static. The computers were jumping through videos, their subjects streaking backwards and forwards through time, the sound just high-pitched screeches of voices. He stepped back to try and get a better look at all the screens at once, his eyes darting from one to another.

Some of the videos were slowing down enough for him to make out their subjects. Through the hissing babble of noise, he struggled to pick out the accompanying words to the silent lips.

"Why did the Keyblade choose me? I have to know," a voice said.

His eyes fell on a scene of a dark city. A cloaked figure he recognized as Axel was staring at the camera, swinging his hands in frustration. "You can't turn on the Organization! You get on their bad side and they'll destroy you!" The image began to speed up and snow over.

"Organization XIII... they're a bad group," the voice said from somewhere to his left, tearing his attention away from the image of Axel freezing and rewinding.

An image of a small girl with blonde hair popped up on a monitor, her blue eyes gazing out of the screen. "Bad or good, I don't know," she answered. "They're a group of incomplete people who wish to be whole."

A flash out of the corner of his eyes stole his attention to another monitor, where the girl's face popped up again. "You and Sora are connected. In order for Sora to become completely whole again... he needs you."

Flash, and her face appeared on another monitor. "Do you remember your true name?" she said, and froze, the image shifting and clipping.

Sora fumbled for his radio, hesitant to take his eyes off the monitors. "Hey, are you there? What is going on?" he shouted into the radio, trying to make himself heard above the din.

The image of the girl shifted and came back to life. "Don't you want to know the truth about who you really are?"

"It's best he doesn't know the truth," a different, lower tone said. Sora's head snapped to the right, where an image had crackled to life on another monitor. A man whose face was obscured by red bandages gazed with a single gold eye out at him. "There's no knowledge that has the power to change your fate," he stated, his eye narrowing.

"Even if it doesn't, I want to know. I have the right to know!" the voice shouted back.

"A Nobody doesn't have a right to know," the man responded, undeterred by the frustration in the voice. "Nor does it even have the right to be."

A monitor nearby flashed to the girl. "You... you were never supposed to exist--"

The image disappeared. In its place, a boy with short, spiky hair he recognized as Hayner gestured towards the camera with a popsicle stick. "We can't be together forever..." he was saying, "so we'd better make the time we do have something to remember."

"You've got memories from here in the Organization, right?" a familiar voice cut across the room. Sora turned to a monitor to his left to an image of Axel, the Twilight Town sun setting behind him.

"Yeah... I do, don't I. I couldn't bear to lose my memories of you or Xion," a voice answered from somewhere behind the screen.

"Well see? There ya go." Axel turned to look out over the town. "Everybody's got something they want to hang on to."

"It's scary to think that I could lose you guys."

Axel glanced back at the screen in surprise. "Scary? Scary's a feeling, man."

The image froze and began to fast-forward. Another monitor blinked off and back on with an image of the man in bandages, gazing down at the screen as if Sora were looking up from the ground. "He told you how he 'felt', did he?" the man was saying, shaking his head. "Ridiculous. A Nobody cannot feel anything."

With this the monitors exploded in a flurry of images. He caught glimpses of Axel and a girl in a black coat talking, running, fighting Heartless, laughing. Next to them he could see similar images of the trio he had met in Twilight Town -- Hayner, Pence and Olette eating ice cream, laughing, running, talking. The images flashed so fast, and the locations and the point of view were often so similar, it became difficult to tell the difference between them. The images began to change tone -- the girl sleeping; Hayner, Pence, and Olette frozen; the girl holding a Keyblade towards him, Axel and the girl fighting each other; distant shots of the Twilight Town trio playing together, oblivious to the existence of the person watching; the girl disintegrating; the flash of a Keyblade as Riku struggled against an unseen adversary; looking out at the man in bandages in this very computer room as numbers filled the screen, stretching across the monitors until they all went black. The voices fell away, the computers whined as the fans slowed and the processors died.

For a second Sora thought the visual bombardment was over. Then, with a crack like a gunshot and a flurry of sparks, the monitor in front of him split in two. The equipment around him exploded as if bludgeoned by an unseen force. Sora instinctively covered his head with his arms, listening to crash of metal and the hiss of sparks. When the noise had finally died down, he dropped his arms. Without the light of the monitors, the room was nearly pitch black. He could just make out a warm glow on a nearby wall where a computer had once been. His eyes traced the outline of a doorframe. Sora picked his way across the ruins towards the door. He pushed it open, shading his eyes from the strong light on the other side. Shapes began to emerge through the light as his eyes adjusted to the glare.

He was standing in a small, bright room. All around him were colorful pieces of furniture. A bookshelf took up most of one wall, what little books it held leaning haphazardly against each other. A pile of papers were scattered across a desk and over the dirty floor, strewn with discarded clothing and toys. Under a wide, sunlit window stood a bed, its sheets kicked to the end and the pillow tilted. Sora climbed on the bed and looked out the window, and was shocked to see Twilight Town sprawling out into the distance. He pushed at the window pane, searching for a way to open it, but it did not budge. Disappointed but not altogether surprised, he turned his back to the window and kicked his feet out over the edge of the bed. The room felt cozy and familiar, though he was sure he had never been here before. Its disheveled state reminded him a lot of his room back on Destiny Islands, and he felt a pang of nostalgia.

Sora heard the click of the radio turning on and the soft hiss of white noise. He pulled the radio off his belt. "Hey, is that you? Are you there?" he asked.

"... Yeah, I'm still here," the voice replied.

"Did you see what happened? All those videos? What was that?"

"Those... weren't videos."

Sora leaned away from the window. "Huh?"

"You know those dreams you told me about? About the Organization?"

"Yeah... but... a lot of weird stuff like that has happened since I got here..." Sora replied slowly. He was not sure he liked where this was going.

"The dreams, the videos... those are all my memories. _Our_ memories."

"Our--?"

"This room," the voice interrupted, "this is the room that guy made for me, when he put me inside the computer. It's fake. Everything... my friends, my memories, my life... it was all made up to keep me from finding out the truth."

There was silence as Sora tried to piece this together in his mind. "The truth about what?"

"About who I was, _what_ I was... and especially about you."

"Me? Why me?"

There was a long pause where Sora could only hear the white noise of the radio transmission. "Sora... I think you already know," the voice responded at last.

Sora absentmindedly stuck a hand in a pocket and felt something cold brush his fingers. He pulled out the broken piece of shell he found at the bottom of the clock tower. Digging through his pockets, he pulled out the other objects he had found -- the building block, the sea shell, the piece of stone -- and dropped them on the bed beside him. Pushing the pieces around, he saw his own name spelt back at him. His eyes strayed to something glinting on the floor at his feet: a metal pendant in the shape of a stylized X. He picked it up and placed it beside the other pieces and shuffled them around, until they became a different string of letters: R O X A S.

"'Roxas'..." Sora read. "I've heard that name before... that's... you, isn't it?"

"... That's right."

Sora pushed himself off of the bed. His mind was working furiously to keep up with his thoughts; he felt like the computers struggling to process the commands it did not want to accept. "So... so that means... you're... you're a Nobody... you're _my_ Nobody?" Vaguely he was aware that the light outside the window was dimming; the color was fading from the room around him. The furniture and objects around him were coiling in on themselves, burning without flame, dissolving. "I don't understand... how could I have a Nobody? Why didn't anyone tell me?" The words had barely left his lips before his thoughts turned to the Nobodies that had seen him but called for Roxas, to Yen Sid's explanation of Nobodies... to the photograph in a box, and the town with its perpetual sunset that felt so familiar. _It can't be true... it just can't_, he thought. _This is just another trick, it's just the Organization trying to manipulate me again._

Soon, Sora was standing in a dark, empty room with only a door, barely lit by a faint red glow. For a long, hesitant moment he stared at its plain black surface, feeling his heart grow heavy with foreboding. He knew his thoughts were reaching towards what lay on the other side of that door. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to run, and nothing left to run from except the wave of dread threatening to crash down on him. He reached a trembling hand towards the doorknob, and was startled to hear the click of a lock. Instinctively he pulled his hand back, hesitating. He took a few long, slow breaths, and reached for the knob once more. He expected to feel the bite of cold metal, but there was no sensation -- just the prickle of fear. The knob turned, and the door opened.


	21. The Darkness That Lurks in Our Minds

Sora stepped into a pool of faint light. Beyond the light, he could see nothing but darkness. He could hear his footsteps echo, so he knew there must be a wall or ceiling somewhere. He paused, unwilling to leave the safety of the light.

He had not been standing for long when he heard footsteps approaching -- the steady clip clonk of heels. From the shadows emerged a shape -- a girl in a short black skirt and hooded top, beads jingling from the tassels. Her hair was cropped short, black with streaks of blonde and red. As she stepped towards the light, he could make out the glint of her blue eyes and the slight smirk on her lips. He took a step back as she stopped at the edge of the light.

"A-Akiri? Is that you?" he sputtered.

Her smile grew and she tossed the bangs from her eyes. "Hello, Sora," she greeted demurely.

The momentary joy he felt at seeing her face again was fading to confusion and -- though he could not explain it -- fear. "But... you... you're dead... I saw you die..."

She blinked and tilted her head. "What are you talking about? I've been looking everywhere for you." She took a step towards him, and Sora took another step back.

"No... this isn't right. You're not real."

"Of course I'm real!" She did a little spin to show off her figure. "You just aren't thinking clearly. Come here." She held her arms out towards him, and he backpedaled from her reach. "What's wrong? Aren't you happy to see me?" she pouted.

"I would be... if you were real."

She put her hands on her hip. "What makes you think I'm not?"

"You're not the same Akiri I met... you look different... you look like... like that girl, Xion."

She glanced down at her outfit and tugged at a lock of her hair. "Do I? Well? What do you think? Do you like it?"

"No! I mean... I didn't know Xion... she... _you... _aren't a part of my memories."

The girl giggled at this. "But I am a part of your memories! You remember now, don't you?"

He did. Spelling out Roxas' name had opened a floodgate of information he never knew existed inside himself, of two separate lives he had never actually lived. "You can't be Xion... and you're not Akiri, either..." Staring at her, a thought dawned on him. "There never was an Akiri, was there?"

The girl clapped her hands. "Oh, of course there was! Here." She held out a hand to his chest, just above his heart. "Do you understand?"

"I... I'm not sure..."

She dropped her hand and turned away. "Sora... do you know why you're here? In Silent Hill?"

Sora placed his hands where hers had been. "We... crashed here. It was an accident."

She spun on her heel. "Is that what you really think? Do you think it's an accident that I'm here? Do you think all the places you've been, the particular monsters you fought... those were all accidents as well?"

"I don't know! None of this makes any sense. It's crazy. I'm going crazy."

There was a sharp crackle and a spark of light. The pool of light was growing, and on its edge he could just make out the form of the pyramid monster he had met on the roof of Brookhaven Hospital. It stepped very slowly towards the light, sparks dancing along the blade clutched in its hand. Fear made his heart leap in his chest, and as he exhaled, dark smoke puffed from the tips of his fingers.

The girl ignored the presence of the monster and focused her gaze on the smoke curling around Sora's hands. "You know you're not crazy. You just don't want to accept who you are, what this place _is_."

"What are you talking about?!" he cried, panic building. The smoke was clawing its way up his arms. The monster was inching its way to his left.

"More than that, I don't think you want to accept what you've _done_."

"I haven't done anything!" At this, there was a screech and a low rumble from outside the pool of light. Sora watched as another pyramid monster stepped into the light -- the monster from the labyrinth. Vines trailed and curled around its feet, the long scythe clutched in its hands glinting in the light. It circled to the right. The dark smoke shot across his chest.

The girl took a step back, away from the light. She was eyeing him with a mixture of pity and frustration crinkling her brow. "As long as you believe that, they'll hunt you."

There was a rushing and trickling, and the pyramid monster from the carousel stepped towards the edge of the light, the enormous mace trailing from its hand, water dripping over its bloated skin and leaking from the hole in its chest. It crept towards the first monster. Sora looked behind him, but the door was gone, and the monsters were circling around to cover the gap behind him. The smoke was trailing down towards his feet. The girl was backing away from the light as another monster appeared with a whistle and a roar -- the same one he had met in the church. It spun the lance in its hands as it took its place to the right just above the second.

Sora watched as the girl began to disappear. "No, wait! Don't leave me here!" he yelled, but she was gone. The monsters stood facing him, forming a square around him. The smoke was reaching its tendrils up towards his face.

A glint of light caught his eyes. Through the darkness where the girl had disappeared, another figure was forming. It was smaller than the other monsters, but had the same unmistakable shape covering its head. Patterns of light traced their way across its skin. Light glowed from under the mesh of its burnished metal helmet, decorated with jagged patterns and chains. The light reached up in faint beams around its head, and glared from a long gash across its bare chest. A thick black cloak had been ripped up and sewn back together, hanging down from his hips. As the creature stepped towards the pool of light in front of him, he saw that each hand held on to an identical katana, the blades curved and glowing softly. The other monsters seemed uneasy at its arrival, and for a moment Sora thought they might turn on it. The newcomer seemed unfazed, and kept its faceless gaze solely on Sora.

_This is it.... I'm going to die_, Sora thought._ I don't think even the power of darkness will save me now. _He watched in a numb detachment as the dark smoke lapped at his chin, curling up in long tendrils from his arms and hands. He held out his arms, watching the darkness swirl. _I guess the darkness is not so bad. Maybe that is where I'm going now. _

The monsters snarled and spat at one another, the air filling with a torrent of crackling and roaring and rumbling. He looked at each of them in turn. With nowhere to run and none of the frantic desire to fight, he finally had a good chance to look at them. As he stared, darkness shifting across his eyes, he could hear voices and images play like worn-out tape in his mind.

_A woman in a black cloak with blonde hair and a wide smirk twirled a fan of knives. 'Guess you really are a hero. A heartless hero!' -- _and she disappeared in a burst of lightning and darkness.

_A man in a black cloak with wild pink hair summoned a scythe in a burst of rose petals. 'You turn from the truth because your heart is weak.' -- _and he also disappeared in an explosion of petals and darkness.

_A young man in a black cloak held up his hands in defense. 'Oh, we do too have hearts! Don't be mad...' -- _but he also dissolved into water and darkness.

_A man in a black cloak with long black dreadlocks stood backdropped by six swirling lances. 'When Kingdom Hearts is ours, we can exist fully and completely.' -- _but the lances burst into light, and he crumpled howling into the darkness.

_'I'm not scared of a bunch of ghosts, are you?'_ Akiri's voice rang in his head. Ghosts... all along he had been chasing down ghosts -- phantom remnants of darkness. What were Nobodies, really, then ghosts of memories, searching for a way to survive in a world in which they no longer belonged? He really had been afraid; afraid of what he could not understand, afraid of what the existence of these creatures really meant. What was the true nature of their existence -- and what did it mean to destroy? Was it, as he had often been told, merely erasing that which was never meant to exist -- that should never have existed in the first place? Were the memories and experiences and pains of his own Nobody nothing more than the illusion of an existence, an echo meant to return to the source or fade away?

_Will I go to the same place as them? Into darkness? _Sora thought. _If there's a place of darkness, there must be one of light, too. But maybe I don't deserve to go there. _Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes. The smoke had slowed, pooling hesitantly around his chest. The monsters were closing in around him, shaking their weapons. The newcomer crossed its blades, and the patterns glowed in vibrant waves.

_Mom, Dad... Riku, Kairi... Donald, Goofy... will they forgive me? _he thought, falling to his knees. _Will I ever see them again? Will they want to see me? _Sora looked up at the monsters towering over him, jostling one another to get closer. _I thought wielding the Keyblade made me special... everyone was counting on me. I thought the true power of the Keyblade was fighting for the light, and that made me one of the good guys. But... maybe that's not true. _His eyes fell to the katanas crossed in front of him. _A blade is a weapon... weapons are meant to destroy... whatever the nature of the person holding it, that is its purpose. _

Sora looked down at his hands. The darkness was curling away from his fingertips, burning back up his arms. _Maybe the real reason I can't use the Keyblade has nothing to do with light or dark. I didn't want to use it. I was afraid. I didn't want to accept what everyone really expects of me... to destroy. I've been nothing but a tool for someone else's plans. _

The small pyramid monster raised the crossed blades to either side of Sora's throat. Sora held his head up, feeling his skin burn where the edges of the blade pressed against him. _The Keyblade is not really good or bad, light or dark... it's both, and neither at the same time. Just like Kingdom Hearts is both light and dark... there is both in everyone. _

The other monsters pointed their weapons down at him. He could feel blood trickling down his neck. The dark smoke had retreated to the edges of his clothing. _I guess... there really is nothing to be afraid of, _he thought, and closed his eyes.

He felt a force like a gust of wind bursting from his chest. There was a rustle of cloth and clank of metal as the monsters shifted in confusion. The blades left his neck. Sora's eyes blinked open.

The darkness around him had exploded into a swirling cloud. As he watched, it was sucked backwards towards him, and disappeared into the fabric of his clothing. The blood and dirt shriveled and caked off; threads reached across the rips and tears in the fabric and repaired. Dark smoke clouded and settled into the form of the jacket and gloves he had lost. Drops of silver were spreading across his clothing in glistening shades. The cuts and scrapes on his skin were healing. He held out his hands, and with a burst of light and a crackle of darkness, two Keyblades appeared in front of him and hovered in the air: one black, and one silver-white. He pushed himself shakily to his feet and, with a jolt of shock, felt his feet leave the ground as well, so his toes were hovering just above the ground.

The monsters stumbled back with a collective howl of fear and rage. Sora watched in stunned amazement as the Keyblades began to spin protectively around him. _That's right... I don't need to be afraid anymore, _he thought, and he turned to face the monsters surrounding him. They charged, each wielding their respective weapon and hurtling their elements. A bolt of lightning shot towards him and was reflected back towards a wave of water. Sora swerved around a gust of wind and crossed his arms, the Keyblades crossing through the vines reaching for him. The Keyblades appeared to obey his thoughts but also react on their own, and soon he was flying with them in and out of the light as he repelled a barrage of blades and electricity, earth and wind. The Keyblades danced in front of his eyes, blurring into trails of light and dark. Their attacks could not touch him. He struck down each monster one by one, and watched as the elements turned on each -- lightning burning through one, another crumbling into earth, melting and curling into steam, disintegrating and disappearing into the wind.

The Keyblades slowed, and he descended softly back towards the pool of light, where the last creature waited, a blade at each side. As if to mimic, the Keyblades fell at each side of Sora, as the two regarded one another for a long moment.

Then, with a clash of light, they rushed at one another, the katanas ringing as they collided with the Keyblades. They pushed at one another, neither able to strike faster or move quicker than the other. Even without physically holding the Keyblades, Sora felt himself draining; his heart beat a staccato rhythm against his chest, his lungs ached for air. The bursts and clashes of light became a haze in front of his eyes. Finally he backed off, feeling his feet sink to the ground and his body sag as he struggled to catch his breath. The Keyblades clattered to the floor and disappeared. The silver shades dissolved from his clothing, returning back to the same familiar hues of blues, reds, yellows and blacks.

The monster stood in front of him, the katanas at its sides. A glowing substance was bleeding from the patterns in its skin and the gash in its chest, dripping out of the mesh of its helmet, covering the creature in a bright light. The katanas fell from its hand and also clattered against the ground. Slowly, shakily, the creature reached up to grasp the sides of its helmet. Sora watched in exhausted bewilderment as slowly, the creature pulled the helmet from its head.

For a long, confused moment, Sora thought he was looking at himself. It was only as the face looking back at him blinked, and a smile tugged at its lips, that he realized it was not him he was looking at. The boy in front of him could be his twin, if it was not for the tousled blonde hair shining gold in the light. Sora saw the boy's lips move, but could not hear anything. Before he had a chance to get a better look, there was an explosion of light. Sora threw a hand up to shield his eyes, and when he had dropped his hand, the boy was gone.

In his place stood a familiar figure in a black cloak. Feeling his strength leave him, Sora sank to the floor, leaning back and taking long, shaky breaths. "Is this... a dream?" he wheezed. "Am I just dreaming all of this?"

The man crossed his arms, his face as indistinguishable as ever beneath his hood. "Reality is what we make of it. Or, in this case, what _you_ make of it."

Sora pushed himself up to lean his arms against his knees, smirking. "You're still not making any sense. It wouldn't kill you to give me a straight answer, would it?"

The man chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. "I told you in the beginning, but you didn't listen to me."

Sora stared down at his feet. "This town... it is all connected, somehow," he thought aloud. "All the places I've seen have felt like places I've already been. They all made me think of someone different. All the monsters were Nobodies and Heartless I've... destroyed. All of it comes back to me somehow. I just... didn't want to see it. It was all so frightening and messed up, I was too busy running and fighting to see it. I kept making excuses." He buried his head in his arms. "Now Donald and Goofy are gone because of me."

The man shook his head. "The town draws on the darkness in one's heart. Goofy was blinded by his loyalty to the point he no longer cared for himself. Donald's unbridled rage and selfishness inevitably overcame him."

Sora lifted his head up and scowled. "I should have helped them! I should have told them the truth! They thought I was a monster..."

The man uncrossed his arms. "And you were, weren't you? You became what they saw, and what you expected from yourself." He held out a hand. Dark smoke burst from his palm. "Darkness only has the power that you choose to give it. Your fears can control you, if you let them." The smoke danced along his fingers, and he brushed it away. "That dark form will always return as long as there is darkness in your heart, and there always will be. There will always be some fear. That is what it means to be human."

Sora looked away. "I can't go back like this... I hurt so many people... Donald and Goofy... my parents... Kairi... Riku..."

The man tilted his head. "Not everything you fear is the truth. Haven't they hurt you as well?"

"Well..."

"Do you hate them?"

"No! Of course not..."

The man sighed. "Do not be ashamed of what you have or have not done. Everything is not divided into black and white. I know you have seen this, or you would not have the gray form. Your greatest power lies not in darkness or light, but in the unity of both. That's why you found Roxas in the Gray World."

"Roxas? Wait... what happened to him?"

The man shifted his weight and looked away. "He was sacrificed to restore you. He is the darkness to your light, the other side of your heart."

"Did he... die? Did I kill him?"

"He is a part of you now, as much as you were a part of him. Just like Xion was a reflection of you both."

Sora looked down at his chest. "They were... real, weren't they?"

The man stared at him for a moment. "Perhaps, as much as you believe," he answered finally.

Sora sighed and pushed himself off the floor. "I think I can finally answer your question."

"Hmm?"

"In the church. You asked me what I believe." Sora held out his hand, the Kingdom Key appearing in a flash of white light. "I believe in myself. I believe in my own power," he announced. He let his hand drop to his side. "I don't know if what I'm doing is right or wrong. But I want to protect my friends. I want to protect everyone. If that means I have to destroy... that is my responsibility as the Keybearer. I have to see things through." Sora opened his hand and the Keyblade disappeared. He bowed his head. "I want to go home with Riku and Kairi... I want to see my parents again... I want tell everyone that I'm sorry..."

The man stepped closer to Sora. "What if they cannot forgive you?"

Sora shuddered and closed his eyes. "I just have to hope they will."

The man turned away and raised his hand. Dark smoke burst from the air and swirled into a wide portal. Sora stepped back, eyeing the portal warily. The man turned to regard Sora. "This portal will take you back, if you are not afraid of the darkness."

Sora clenched his fists and puffed out his chest. "I'm not afraid." He stepped towards the portal and paused. "Who are you? You're not from the Organization, are you?" He looked back towards the man in the black coat.

The man hesitated. "No, I am not. But I am not much different from them." He reached up and pulled back his hood, and Sora stumbled backwards. The man gazing back at him had dark bronzed skin, swept-back silver hair, and piercing gold eyes.

"Ansem?!" he blurted out in surprise. "Or uh, wait... Xehanort's Heartless? But... I thought..." He stared at the man in confusion, who stared back at him with a stony expression. Sora frowned. "I was right not to trust you... you've caused nothing but trouble... for me, for Riku, for everyone... but, I... I forgive you, anyway."

Ansem said nothing, only looked away. Sora thought he saw hurt in Ansem's eyes, but shook his head -- he must have imagined it. He turned back towards the portal. For a moment he felt like he was missing something... but the feeling passed, and he stepped into the darkness, and the world dropped away.


	22. Null Moon

Dale sat on the starboard wing of the newly repaired _Highwind_, his head in the palms of his tiny hands. He let out a long sigh as he gazed out into the fog. "Aw Chip, what're we gonna do?"

Chip appeared from around the bow, a rag in his hand. He had been buffing the window of the cockpit. "We just gotta keep waiting, that's all!" he answered, and turned back to the window.

Dale swung his feet back and forth. "But what if he doesn't come back?"

"He'll come back!" Chip's voice squeaked from the other side of the window.

"But what if he _doesn't_?"

"_Dale!_"

There was a gust of wind and a burst of shadow like flame, and Dale nearly tumbled off the wing. A dark portal had appeared near the ship, and Dale looked on in a mixture of surprise and fear as dark tendrils swirled around it. Chip spring onto the bow of the ship, looking as fierce as a chipmunk in an apron possibly could.

To both of their surprise and Chip's immense relief, a familiar figure stepped through the portal, looking disheveled and confused -- Sora. Dale leapt from the wing and scrambled towards Sora. Sora looked back to see the portal disappear behind him.

"Sora! It's Sora!" Dale cried, leaping onto Sora's shoe.

"See! I told you!" Chip retorted.

Sora registered the squeaks of their voices. "Chip! Dale!" He bent down to scoop Dale off of his shoe and hold him up to his face, who hugged his cheek. "Oh man am I glad to see you guys!"

"Where have you been? We've been trying to contact you for hours!" Chip cried, picking his way across the dirt and gravel towards Sora.

"We got the ship all fixed up for ya!" Dale chimed in. "She's ready to go!"

"Really? You mean it works now?"

"Yeah, alluva sudden, all the lights came back on and the systems started runnin'!"

"But we did most of the work," Chip added.

Sora's smile faded. "That's great guys... really great," Sora said, placing Dale back on the ground.

Sensing the change, Chip frowned. "What's the matter?"

"Well... I don't really know how to say this... but Donald and Goofy aren't coming back with us."

"Whaddya mean?" Dale asked.

"I mean I... lost them... in the town," Sora replied.

Chip placed his hands on his hips. "They're not lost, Sora!"

Sora blinked. "Huh?"

"Yeah, they're right here!" Dale squeaked, and hurried over to the door. Out of the ship stepped Goofy, looking a little tired, but unscathed. He brightened when he caught sight of Sora, and became so excited he tumbled out of the ship onto the ground.

"Goofy?!" Sora cried. He ran over, helping Goofy to his feet. Goofy pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. "B-but... I thought you were..."

"I'm okay, Sora!" Goofy sobbed, fat tears dripping over his cheeks onto Sora's shoulder. "But I wasn't sure if we were gonna... see you again!" He let go and pulled out a handkerchief, blowing noisily into it. "Donald said you were still out there!"

"Donald?! Donald is here?" Sora pushed past Goofy to climb inside the cockpit. Donald was sitting in the captain's chair, arms folded, staring blankly out at the window. As Sora approached, he looked away. "Donald..."

Donald sighed and slowly turned to look at Sora, still avoiding his eyes. "Sora... I... I'm sorry about... about..." Donald shuddered, and flinched as Sora placed a hand on his shoulder.

"It's okay. I'm sorry too," Sora said. For a moment they just looked at each other, and Sora grinned, and Donald slowly relaxed his arms, and smiled. Goofy pulled them both into a sobbing, suffocating hug.

Dale climbed up onto the chair and jumped onto Donald's hat, hugging it. "Get off! Off! Off!" Donald yelped, flailing his arms. They backed away, Goofy blowing into his handkerchief, Sora wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Dale clung happily to Donald's hat and refused to budge.

Chip jumped into the cockpit, the door closing behind him. "So? Are we ready to go?" he squeaked.

"Yeah, let's get out of here!" Sora sighed, collapsing into one of the chairs. He heard a yell of protest, and jumped, pulling a flustered and slightly offended Jiminy from behind him.

"Well pardon _me_!" Jiminy cried, pushing out his hat, dusting himself off, and straightening out the page in his journal on which he had been writing.

"Jiminy! Oh... we really missed you!" Sora said, setting Jiminy safely down on the arm of the chair.

"Yeah, we needed your maps!" Donald added, taking the controls. Sora and Goofy laughed.

"I fell out in the crash! And look, look what happened to my journal!" he wailed, holding up a very tattered book. "This will take weeks to repair, _weeks!_"

"Well, as long as you're okay," Sora laughed.

The ship shuddered and hummed as the engines roared to life. Sora felt the familiar sensation of his stomach shifting as the engines pushed off the ground and they slowly rose into the air. He watched as they climbed through the fog, and the dark outlines of the town of Silent Hill faded into the distance. Soon they were pulling away from the world, back into the bruise blues and purples of space.

Sora settled into his chair. "So, how did you guys get back? Especially you, Goofy... I thought... well, Donald and I... we thought you were a goner."

Donald and Goofy exchanged glances. "Gee, I thought I was too," Goofy replied. "But when the light went out, and I was in the dark... well... suddenly the Heartless were gone, and I was in a dark corridor. I followed it, and it brought be back here. I waited, and eventually Donald showed up, too!"

Donald glanced back at Sora, but did not take his hands off the controls. He was concentrating on getting them as far away from that world as possible. "After I, uh... left... I fell, into a dark pit, like a tunnel. When I hit the ground, I was back at the ship."

Sora considered this. "It... it must have been Ansem," he muttered. "But why?"

"Ansem?" Goofy repeated.

"Yeah... the guy who brought me back."

"Not _the _Ansem? Or, Xehanort's Heartless?" Donald suggested.

"No... I don't know... something was different... why would he help us?"

"Don't know, don't care!" Donald snorted.

"So what do we do now?" Goofy wondered aloud.

Sora leaned back in his chair. "We gotta find a way to take down the Organization."

"I thought that's what we've _been_ doing!" Donald sighed.

Sora laughed. "But this time it's _our_ decision."

"What about Riku?" Goofy asked.

"Yeah, was he ever in that town in the first place?" Donald added.

Sora turned to look out the window. "I don't know... but... if he wants to be found... we'll find him."

In the distance, the sunset hues of Twilight Town rose from the darkness.

* * *

A glimmer of red light floated up through the night sky. It glittered and twirled towards an enormous heart-shaped moon. Kingdom Hearts, the source of all hearts, swelled against the stars, threatening to swallow them up in its power and magnificence. Below the light of the moon, Ansem the Wise -- or DiZ, as he was now known -- stood on a platform outside the immense and towering walls of a gray castle. Behind him sat the workings of a strange device, one he intended to use to the destroy the brilliant shape hanging in the sky. He sighed and turned away from Kingdom Hearts to return to his work.

A black mist appeared beside him and a portal burst from the air. He blinked, nonplussed behind the crimson wrapping covering his face, as a figure in a black cloak stepped from the portal. The dark portal disappeared, and for a moment the two regarded one another. The cloaked man paused and reached up to remove the hood from his head. DiZ blinked, and turned away to focus on his device.

"I see the Keyblade's chosen one has returned," DiZ remarked, nodding his head toward the sparks of red floating in the sky.

The man glanced up at the sky and back to DiZ. "It was his choice. He knows everything now."

DiZ reached for a sheaf of tools, turning the device around. "Does he? That's good, very good," he replied without feeling.

The man folded his arms. "You still believe he shouldn't know?"

"What I believe is of no significance. It was necessary for him to understand to achieve our goal. That is all. You have done well, Ansem."

The man sighed and started to pace around the parapet. "Are you still obsessed with your revenge?"

DiZ stopped, his hands paused over the device. "Revenge does not matter anymore," he replied. "What matters is correcting my mistake before this grows beyond all of us."

The man paused to glance down at the device. "And you think this machine will fix it? I think you underestimate the power of the heart."

DiZ said nothing to this, only returned to his work. "Did you tell him?" he asked after a moment.

"Tell him what?"

"About your true form."

The man looked away off the side of the platform at the tips of dark buildings far below. "This is my true form," he mumbled.

DiZ pushed the device away. "Riku," he began. "There is nothing more you can do for me. Return to Sora. He will need you in the end."

For a long moment Riku stared down at DiZ. Finally he turned away, summoning another portal.

"You will not always be like this," DiZ said. Riku paused in front of the portal, but did not turn around. "He will accept you regardless. He will see past the darkness." DiZ looked up to Riku's back. "It is not his forgiveness that you need. It is your own."

Riku looked down at his feet, then stepped into the portal. It disappeared with a rush of black smoke. DiZ gazed at the spot Riku had been, then turned back to his machine.

_Soon... soon those doors we have tried so hard to keep locked will open_, DiZ glanced up at the moon hanging in the sky. _And perhaps, some can finally be closed. _

* * *

A/N: Well, that's it... please see my profile for more information about goodies related to the fic (illustrations, fanart, soundtrack, etc.)! Thanks to all the readers who have stuck with me for the past couple years, and all the new readers who gave this a shot. I really enjoyed this project and hope you did as well. ~ Tigrin


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